Race report
Formula V8 3.5
Bittersweet day for Draco Racing in Monza
The Brazilian team passed from the excitement for a great result in Qualifying to the disappointment for an unlucky race.
Published: Apr 12, 2014, 9:28 PM
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Draco Racing experienced a bittersweet day in Monza. On the Italian track, that played host to the F.Renault 3.5 season opener, the Brazilian team passed from the excitement for a great result in Qualifying, with rookie Luca Ghiotto a brilliant third, to the disappointment for an unlucky race that saw both cars end far from the points.
Ghiotto, after his excellent performance in the morning timed session, had a slow start and lost three places. After fighting for P5 in the early part of the race, he went off track at the first Lesmo corner and rejoined in P17 after losing a lot of time to get out of the gravel bed. He then stopped in the pits for a quick front tyre change, and took the flag in sixteenth place.
Pietro Fantin's day was a difficult one too: after his brilliant performances in yesterday's Free Practice sessions, the Brazilian driver struggled with understeer right from qualifying, ending the session in P15. He fought fiercely throughout the race, but he couldn't do better than P12.
Pietro Fantin (Q1 - P15; R1 - P12): "Today was quite a frustrating day. After our great performances in Free Practice we were expecting to be able to challenge for a podium finish, but the track conditions changed quite a lot because of the rubber left on track by the GT cars, and we didn't find the right solutions to cope with that. I had a lot of understeer, we will try to address that for tomorrow".
Luca Ghiotto (Q1 - P3; R1 - P16): "All the issues I had today came from my bad start. Starting from third place I should have opted for a safe procedure, instead I tried to get a very quick getaway but it didn't work as planned. Apart from that, the first laps were difficult because I had never driven the car with a full load of fuel before, and I found it very different from what I was used to. I had less grip and I went wide in the first Lesmo corner, rejoining in last place. Obviously I'm disappointed, but this morning we showed that we have the pace, so I hope I'll get another shot at a podium result tomorrow".
Draco Racing
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