Jack Keithley was once againt the strongest link at Spa FSR weekend.
World Series
A close qualifying brought Jack Keithley to third place on the grid, even though the Briton only lost 4 hundreths to the pole-sitter Eduard Mallorqui. At the start, Jack was immediately able to advance into P2 after a close situation with Mallorqui and Rob van Starkenburg. In the following laps, Jack demonstrated he had a pace advantage over race leader Peter Puschke, but without a top speed advantage, overtaking would turn out difficult.
Further behind eight qualified Cyril Werdmuller was having a strong race, advancing several positions in the first laps. The Dutch conducted a long fight with Ivar Kalamees for third place, which he eventually won on lap 21 after a brilliant overtake. Fred Gosling had meanwhile advanced up to eight after starting in 13th.
The race decider came during the last pit stops, when Puschke commited a critical error under pressure, losing his front wing in the pit entry. This gave Jack plenty of margin to take the lead after his stop a lap later, and the series leader indeed made no error. At the chequered flag, Jack finished in a clean victory, his third of the season. Cyril took his second podium of the season to finish in third, while Fred finished in eight.
World Championship
The world championship race saw a much anticipated return of championship leader Bono Huis. The team had a somewhat difficult qualifying, forcing Huis to settle for third place and Jaakko Mikkonen as low as 19th. A the start Bono was able to advance into P2 right away, but lost the position back to Jeffrey Rietveld a few laps later.
In the midfield Jaakko was conducting an exhausting fight against Disley, which saw the two cars contact, but the Finn was able to continue thanks to an incredible save. A few laps later his race got complicated even more, due to contact with a late braking Thomas Cooke.Bono was later subject to heavy pressure from Yannick Lapchin, but the Dutch kept his cool to remain in third. A couple of laps later Bono had a hairy moment with Stoffel Vandoorne, resulting in a somewhat unusual contact. As each car was on a 3 stop strategy, Bono was able to delay his final pit stop 2 laps later than Vandoorne. With fresher tires, Bono was immediately able to gain third place back on the backstraight, which he kept until the end.
After the post race processes, Bono was relegated back to 4th due to mentioned contact with Vandoorne. Nevertheless, the Dutch kept his championship lead which is now 32 points to Morgand Morand, who won the race. Jaakko eventually retired after driving the race with a damaged car from the contact with Cooke.
Bono Huis commented:
"From the first laps in testing I struggled on this track, also I only had limited testing so I wasn't expecting anything from this race. The car was really strange to drive and it's been quite a long time since I've struggled so much. I think I got the maximum possible result today, Morgan and Jeffrey were much faster, congrats to them. Thanks to a perfect strategy I finished 3rd, it could have easily been worse. So now onto Monza, where things should go better."
Jack Keithley commented:
"Knowing my previous visits to Spa had resulted in less than stellar results I was a bit nervous about this one, but we had prepared as well as we could and gave it our best shot and it proved to be good enough and with Cyril also on the podium we had a very strong points day.
We had a good car, but not the best in a straight line so I had to be patient and run in P2 for the majority of the race as Puschke didnt make any mistakes that i could capitalise on until the last pitstop, but overall I felt we were a bit quicker and crucially we nailed all our stops and together with some awesome strategy calls we got to the front when it mattered so all credit to the team for this win."
Team Owner Johannes Kunkel commented:
"A quite divided weekend for us, the World Series was great, scoring a double podium with Jack winning and Cyril in 3rd. In the World Championship we were struggeling with the carsetup and Bono only managed to finish 3rd after a good final stint. The next races will be important so we have to make sure to get our setups right again. Monza should again be a track for where we had some good results in the past, so we will see how it continues."
To follow the progress of the team during the season, make sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter.
Precision Motorsports Press
Official Press Release
written by John-Eric Saxen
www.precision-motorsports.de
World Series
A close qualifying brought Jack Keithley to third place on the grid, even though the Briton only lost 4 hundreths to the pole-sitter Eduard Mallorqui. At the start, Jack was immediately able to advance into P2 after a close situation with Mallorqui and Rob van Starkenburg. In the following laps, Jack demonstrated he had a pace advantage over race leader Peter Puschke, but without a top speed advantage, overtaking would turn out difficult.
Further behind eight qualified Cyril Werdmuller was having a strong race, advancing several positions in the first laps. The Dutch conducted a long fight with Ivar Kalamees for third place, which he eventually won on lap 21 after a brilliant overtake. Fred Gosling had meanwhile advanced up to eight after starting in 13th.
The race decider came during the last pit stops, when Puschke commited a critical error under pressure, losing his front wing in the pit entry. This gave Jack plenty of margin to take the lead after his stop a lap later, and the series leader indeed made no error. At the chequered flag, Jack finished in a clean victory, his third of the season. Cyril took his second podium of the season to finish in third, while Fred finished in eight.
World Championship
The world championship race saw a much anticipated return of championship leader Bono Huis. The team had a somewhat difficult qualifying, forcing Huis to settle for third place and Jaakko Mikkonen as low as 19th. A the start Bono was able to advance into P2 right away, but lost the position back to Jeffrey Rietveld a few laps later.
In the midfield Jaakko was conducting an exhausting fight against Disley, which saw the two cars contact, but the Finn was able to continue thanks to an incredible save. A few laps later his race got complicated even more, due to contact with a late braking Thomas Cooke.Bono was later subject to heavy pressure from Yannick Lapchin, but the Dutch kept his cool to remain in third. A couple of laps later Bono had a hairy moment with Stoffel Vandoorne, resulting in a somewhat unusual contact. As each car was on a 3 stop strategy, Bono was able to delay his final pit stop 2 laps later than Vandoorne. With fresher tires, Bono was immediately able to gain third place back on the backstraight, which he kept until the end.
After the post race processes, Bono was relegated back to 4th due to mentioned contact with Vandoorne. Nevertheless, the Dutch kept his championship lead which is now 32 points to Morgand Morand, who won the race. Jaakko eventually retired after driving the race with a damaged car from the contact with Cooke.
Bono Huis commented:
"From the first laps in testing I struggled on this track, also I only had limited testing so I wasn't expecting anything from this race. The car was really strange to drive and it's been quite a long time since I've struggled so much. I think I got the maximum possible result today, Morgan and Jeffrey were much faster, congrats to them. Thanks to a perfect strategy I finished 3rd, it could have easily been worse. So now onto Monza, where things should go better."
Jack Keithley commented:
"Knowing my previous visits to Spa had resulted in less than stellar results I was a bit nervous about this one, but we had prepared as well as we could and gave it our best shot and it proved to be good enough and with Cyril also on the podium we had a very strong points day.
We had a good car, but not the best in a straight line so I had to be patient and run in P2 for the majority of the race as Puschke didnt make any mistakes that i could capitalise on until the last pitstop, but overall I felt we were a bit quicker and crucially we nailed all our stops and together with some awesome strategy calls we got to the front when it mattered so all credit to the team for this win."
Team Owner Johannes Kunkel commented:
"A quite divided weekend for us, the World Series was great, scoring a double podium with Jack winning and Cyril in 3rd. In the World Championship we were struggeling with the carsetup and Bono only managed to finish 3rd after a good final stint. The next races will be important so we have to make sure to get our setups right again. Monza should again be a track for where we had some good results in the past, so we will see how it continues."
To follow the progress of the team during the season, make sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter.
Precision Motorsports Press
Official Press Release
written by John-Eric Saxen
www.precision-motorsports.de
