Precision Motorsports arrived to Istanbul Park with a humble championship leading position in all three categories and managed to maintain the lead despite some drama in the World Championship.
The World Series qualifying brought a somewhat difficult start to the weekend, which was easily compensated by the race performance. Third qualified David Martinez put up a great victory fight with a 1-stop strategy, which the Spaniard unfortunately couldn't fully realize due to damage in the mid part of the race. Meanwhile Cyril Werdmuller had made a strong leap towards the front after a suboptimal qualifying, which rewarded him with a strong third place. Mattias Stahre, however, once again proved to be the man in the race, as the Stockholm resident managed to pull ahead of Lukas Euler after a race-long duel, thanks to an awesome maneuver in the penultimate lap, scoring his second victory of the season. The result secured Precision a 1-2-3 in the championship standings.
World Trophy provided another somewhat fluctuating qualifying performance, but the result was soon to be forgotten as Pedro Melim was again in his element in the race. The championship leader took the victory in style after dominating the entire race with the help of an early overtake of polesitter and ex-team-mate Muhammed Patel, bringing the fifth season victory for the Portuguese. Ajibola Lawal finally managed to turn around his luck somewhat thanks to a podium position, whilst Emre Uysal continued his consistent performing in fifth place.
World Championship repeated the mantra "one of the closest qualifyings in FSR history", whilst less than four tenths separated the top 15, with Bono Huis and Rasmus Tali in P4 and P5 in the hotlap-biased field. The joy after another clean start did not last long, as David Greco unsettled his car sideways in the final corner, which collected both Ronny Hähnel and Rasmus Tali. The Estonian carried on with a lost front wing, but spun back on the track after running wide, which brought the championship leader his first retirement in the WC.
Whilst Jaakko Mikkonen was making up his way starting from the pits, Bono Huis was solely responsible for carrying the Precision colors at the front while defending against Bruno Marques. The Barcelona incident was seemingly forgotten as the duo carried out a fantastic fight, including no less than 34 swaps of position, which eventually ended in the victory of Marques on the final lap. Jaakko Mikkonen drove an intelligent race to finish 5th after starting from pits, which certainly was the maximum result. The result gave Twister-Racing back the lead in the teams' championship, whereas Precision now maintains a double lead in the drivers' championship.
The next round will be held on the exciting Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where the team scored it´s first ever double victory in 2009.
As the famous final corner states, Bienvenue au Quebec!, live on the following Sunday.
Ondrej Kuncman, Precision Motorsports team manager commented:
"Even though we didnt't achieve all we wanted, we can consider the Turkish GP as a good weekend. The car was generally a bit less drivable than some previous races, but luckily all the drivers did as always a great job and made up for lacking in the setup area. The only negative moment was start of the WC race when Rasmus and Ronny got into trouble. Seemingly the other teams are getting closer each race, we saw some interesting performances, which made us think and improve certain areas of our race preparation in order to promote communication and further improve team work. Let's see how that works in Canada."
Selected driver quotes:
Ajibola Lawal (3rd) commented:
"Qualifying went bad which seems to be a regular occurrence this year so I'll look into this, but still P6 was ok. My start was good and after a few laps I was into 3rd where I was stuck behind Muhammed Patel for the whole race. I tried to overtake but it wasn't possible due to some unfortunate server lag. Many thanks to the team who did a great job in helping to set up our cars, especially John-Eric Saxen and Mattias Stahre. Will keep pushing and hopefully I can get much better results as I'm not achieving the best I can lately."
Mattias Stahre (1st) commented:
"Great race and victory! My preparation for this race had not been really good and I was really not expecting to win this one. Starting 4th is not really ideal on this track but in the end it allowed me to have a great fight with Lukas Euler for the win and obviously I´m very happy to take it myself after many laps of trying to overtake.
However, we are lacking in some areas and the question is if we can figure it out and get some more pace and drivability in the car. The next track is quite rear limited with long acceleration zones from slow speed and hopefully we can keep up with the others there."
David Martinez (4th) commented:
"First of all thanks to all Precision Motorsports members for their work and setups; without this it would have been impossible to obtain good results for me with my limited training for the races. Congratulations to my teammate Mattias for his victory and of course Cyril for his podium. About my race , the qualify were lot better than expected. I hoped to have a good race pace, and it was. On lap 10 in a fight with Euler under braking in the long back straight I received a hit on the back and my car was damaged in the rear.
After the damage I decided to go one stop without knowing if the tires could last. The end result was not bad, 4th position. Very good considering the circumstances. I am very glad as I didn't expect to be competitive in Turkey, but also a little sad because I lost the chance to fight for a win due to damage."
Bono Huis (2nd) commented:
"Obviously it's quite disappointing to lose the victory in the final few corners, but looking at my pace I think it's still a good result. Bruno was faster all race, and he had way more topspeed, so to keep him behind for 57 laps is good. I knew he wasn't trying that hard all race, so I knew it was going down to the last lap and there Bruno drove perfect, he put the car just in the right places in the final 3 corners. So I didn't have any chance to repass him. So congrats to Bruno for the awesome race, looking forward to Canada already, hopefully we have some more top speed."
Jaakko Mikkonen (5th) commented:
"I started the race from pit lane with Mathieu Prèvot due to the penalties from the previous race. At start I tried to get rid of Mathieu, but as it seemed impossible, I decided to just drive with him instead of keeping fighting and losing time. Later Mathieu pitted and I continued alone, then I had two stoppers front of me, basically faster cars but I could stay in touch and gain time with them.Race continued and I found myself from 6th place after everyone had made their final stops. I tried all I could but Poniatowski came behind and went past. Again I could just follow him and hope for the best. On final laps Poniatowski tried to pass some car, which luckily for me ended in collision. I passed the two cars on front and finished the race on fifth place. Race went even better than I hoped so I must be really happy about the result."
Precision Motorsports
Official Press Release
written by John-Eric Saxen
www.precision-motorsports.de
The World Series qualifying brought a somewhat difficult start to the weekend, which was easily compensated by the race performance. Third qualified David Martinez put up a great victory fight with a 1-stop strategy, which the Spaniard unfortunately couldn't fully realize due to damage in the mid part of the race. Meanwhile Cyril Werdmuller had made a strong leap towards the front after a suboptimal qualifying, which rewarded him with a strong third place. Mattias Stahre, however, once again proved to be the man in the race, as the Stockholm resident managed to pull ahead of Lukas Euler after a race-long duel, thanks to an awesome maneuver in the penultimate lap, scoring his second victory of the season. The result secured Precision a 1-2-3 in the championship standings.
World Trophy provided another somewhat fluctuating qualifying performance, but the result was soon to be forgotten as Pedro Melim was again in his element in the race. The championship leader took the victory in style after dominating the entire race with the help of an early overtake of polesitter and ex-team-mate Muhammed Patel, bringing the fifth season victory for the Portuguese. Ajibola Lawal finally managed to turn around his luck somewhat thanks to a podium position, whilst Emre Uysal continued his consistent performing in fifth place.
World Championship repeated the mantra "one of the closest qualifyings in FSR history", whilst less than four tenths separated the top 15, with Bono Huis and Rasmus Tali in P4 and P5 in the hotlap-biased field. The joy after another clean start did not last long, as David Greco unsettled his car sideways in the final corner, which collected both Ronny Hähnel and Rasmus Tali. The Estonian carried on with a lost front wing, but spun back on the track after running wide, which brought the championship leader his first retirement in the WC.
Whilst Jaakko Mikkonen was making up his way starting from the pits, Bono Huis was solely responsible for carrying the Precision colors at the front while defending against Bruno Marques. The Barcelona incident was seemingly forgotten as the duo carried out a fantastic fight, including no less than 34 swaps of position, which eventually ended in the victory of Marques on the final lap. Jaakko Mikkonen drove an intelligent race to finish 5th after starting from pits, which certainly was the maximum result. The result gave Twister-Racing back the lead in the teams' championship, whereas Precision now maintains a double lead in the drivers' championship.
The next round will be held on the exciting Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where the team scored it´s first ever double victory in 2009.
As the famous final corner states, Bienvenue au Quebec!, live on the following Sunday.
Ondrej Kuncman, Precision Motorsports team manager commented:
"Even though we didnt't achieve all we wanted, we can consider the Turkish GP as a good weekend. The car was generally a bit less drivable than some previous races, but luckily all the drivers did as always a great job and made up for lacking in the setup area. The only negative moment was start of the WC race when Rasmus and Ronny got into trouble. Seemingly the other teams are getting closer each race, we saw some interesting performances, which made us think and improve certain areas of our race preparation in order to promote communication and further improve team work. Let's see how that works in Canada."
Selected driver quotes:
Ajibola Lawal (3rd) commented:
"Qualifying went bad which seems to be a regular occurrence this year so I'll look into this, but still P6 was ok. My start was good and after a few laps I was into 3rd where I was stuck behind Muhammed Patel for the whole race. I tried to overtake but it wasn't possible due to some unfortunate server lag. Many thanks to the team who did a great job in helping to set up our cars, especially John-Eric Saxen and Mattias Stahre. Will keep pushing and hopefully I can get much better results as I'm not achieving the best I can lately."
Mattias Stahre (1st) commented:
"Great race and victory! My preparation for this race had not been really good and I was really not expecting to win this one. Starting 4th is not really ideal on this track but in the end it allowed me to have a great fight with Lukas Euler for the win and obviously I´m very happy to take it myself after many laps of trying to overtake.
However, we are lacking in some areas and the question is if we can figure it out and get some more pace and drivability in the car. The next track is quite rear limited with long acceleration zones from slow speed and hopefully we can keep up with the others there."
David Martinez (4th) commented:
"First of all thanks to all Precision Motorsports members for their work and setups; without this it would have been impossible to obtain good results for me with my limited training for the races. Congratulations to my teammate Mattias for his victory and of course Cyril for his podium. About my race , the qualify were lot better than expected. I hoped to have a good race pace, and it was. On lap 10 in a fight with Euler under braking in the long back straight I received a hit on the back and my car was damaged in the rear.
After the damage I decided to go one stop without knowing if the tires could last. The end result was not bad, 4th position. Very good considering the circumstances. I am very glad as I didn't expect to be competitive in Turkey, but also a little sad because I lost the chance to fight for a win due to damage."
Bono Huis (2nd) commented:
"Obviously it's quite disappointing to lose the victory in the final few corners, but looking at my pace I think it's still a good result. Bruno was faster all race, and he had way more topspeed, so to keep him behind for 57 laps is good. I knew he wasn't trying that hard all race, so I knew it was going down to the last lap and there Bruno drove perfect, he put the car just in the right places in the final 3 corners. So I didn't have any chance to repass him. So congrats to Bruno for the awesome race, looking forward to Canada already, hopefully we have some more top speed."
Jaakko Mikkonen (5th) commented:
"I started the race from pit lane with Mathieu Prèvot due to the penalties from the previous race. At start I tried to get rid of Mathieu, but as it seemed impossible, I decided to just drive with him instead of keeping fighting and losing time. Later Mathieu pitted and I continued alone, then I had two stoppers front of me, basically faster cars but I could stay in touch and gain time with them.Race continued and I found myself from 6th place after everyone had made their final stops. I tried all I could but Poniatowski came behind and went past. Again I could just follow him and hope for the best. On final laps Poniatowski tried to pass some car, which luckily for me ended in collision. I passed the two cars on front and finished the race on fifth place. Race went even better than I hoped so I must be really happy about the result."
Precision Motorsports
Official Press Release
written by John-Eric Saxen
www.precision-motorsports.de
