Formula 1

Wilson aiming to finish in Spain

Minardi's Justin Wilson has put the disappointment of retirement from the San Marino Grand Prix, thanks to a malfunctioning fuel rig, firmly behind him and heads to this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix at the 4.73km Circuit de Catalunya targeting his ...

Edited: Apr 30, 2003, 2:15 AM

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Minardi's Justin Wilson has put the disappointment of retirement from the San Marino Grand Prix, thanks to a malfunctioning fuel rig, firmly behind him and heads to this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix at the 4.73km Circuit de Catalunya targeting his first chequered flag race finish.

Justin has impressed many observers with his performances this season in the Cosworth powered Minardi PS03 but the young British rookie has been the victim of some rotten luck in his four starts to date.

A punctured water radiator in Australia ended Justin's F1 debut prematurely, a dislodged seatbelt in Malaysia resulted in his retirement after he lost tension in his HANS device and could no longer race due to the pain, then treacherous weather and track conditions in Brazil caught the Minardi pilot out, along with his team-mate Jos Verstappen, Juan Pablo Montoya and Michael Schumacher to name but a few!

Wilson's enthusiasm remains undeterred as he heads into the fifth round of the F1 World Championship, the 65-lap Spanish Grand Prix.

"My goal is always to do the best job that I can," explained Justin. "My approach is the same and that's to be the quickest I can in both qualifying and the race. At Minardi I have a very good benchmark in my team-mate Jos Verstappen. He's both quick and consistent, the recent exception being his uncharacteristic off in qualifying at San Marino!"

Looking ahead to the race Justin commented: "I like the Circuit de Catalunya though I'm not too sure just how it's going to suit the Minardi. It's a high-downforce track so it'll be interesting to see how we fare. Friday morning's extra test session will be crucial, as ever, to our development of the car and for our set-up for the race. Some of the other teams have tested considerably at Barcelona and have closed the gap to last year's pole time. While we don't have the luxury of that testing time I know everyone's worked hard to progress the PS03's capabilities!"

Justin has previous race experience on many of the circuits fast approaching on the F1 calendar thanks to his International F3000 career and last season's Telefonica Nissan World Series. Justin captured pole position and a third place podium finish at the Circuit de Catalunya for Racing Engineering last year and in 2001 strengthened his F3000 title aspirations with third place at the Spanish track for Nordic Racing. 1999 and 2000 saw Justin score F3000 points in Spain for sixth and fifth places respectively.

Away from the race track, Justin Wilson plc has had share applications totalling £1,050,000 since the issue was launched at the Australian Grand Prix in March. With a maximum share issue of £1.2m, applications for shares in Justin Wilson plc will now close on 30 May 2003 unless the offer is fully subscribed beforehand.

-palmersport-

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