BARCELONA RACE REPORT

© Hoch Zwei

Race 1 – Saturday, 13 th May

I made a really good start from 10 th and was up to 6 th position after a short time. The car was really good, very fast and we had great pit stop so it was all going well and I was in 4 th place behind the two ART cars and Ammermueller.

I tried to go for the podium place – the car was capable of it and so was I – but went too wide and off the track. When you have such a bad start to the season you have to take chances but on this occasion it just didn’t work.

From where we started and finished, only ART were in front of us. I’m disappointed of course, but we were right there and we showed that we could race at the front. Despite the bad result we keep going forward every time we go out, and I know we will get the result we want.

Race 2 – Sunday, 14 th May

Clivio started in 16 th place, his classification after the end of yesterday’s race. He knew it might be a tall order to finish in the points in today’s sprint race, but didn’t allow for being pushed off the track by Franck Perera on the first lap! He’d made a good start and got up to 12 th, and was feeling confident with the car and was sure he could make more progress through the field. He was unable to complete even one lap.

BARCELONA PREVIEW/QUALIFYING

© Hoch Zwei

It’s the second trip of the year to Spain for the GP2 series, but the big difference is that everyone tested at the fast , 4.7km Catalunyan track back in March so the competition will be even closer. Clivio loves this track, not least because the test went well for the DPR Direxiv team, and is really looking forward to the races.

After a really heavy rain storm overnight, it was a very wet track which greeted the drivers this morning. As it was due to dry out for qualifying, it meant that the 30 minute practice session would not offer much in the way of information on car set up. Thank goodness again for the test!

Clivio said after practice this morning, “We didn’t change much from the test, and went out using a dry set up even though it was wet. The car was very good and I felt positive straight away. I overtook many cars but was in traffic for a lot of the time. I think we could have gone even quicker but we did a pretty good job considering the car was on the dry set up.” Clivio’s best time in practice of 1m 45.935 placed him in 10 th.

“It’s tricky to find the optimum set-up here, with the circuit’s combination of high, medium  and  slow  speed  corners,  long  and  short straights and heavy braking zones. Because of that, lots of people make mistakes and you pay the price and go off the track. Luckily, that didn’t happen to me today.

“Qualifying this afternoon went pretty well but, of course, could have been better. On my first set of new tyres I was 3 rd, and the car was good. We didn’t have a problem with the set up and I went out with a second set [of tyres] but didn’t improve. Ammermueller got me on my best lap and when the session was red flagged I was in p5. I got out for my 3 rd and last set of tyres, improved on the first sector but lost a bit at the end so was a tenth of a second off my best lap time. All three flying laps were close together on time, but my quickest was a 1m 24.294. Perhaps we should have risked a bit more to try something different, but it wasn’t too bad overall.