Race report
Formula V8 3.5
Difficult weekend for I.S.R. in Monte-Carlo
Christopher Zanella and Sergey Sirotkin didn't have high aims for the race on a track where passing is nearly impossible...
Edited: May 27, 2013, 2:14 PM
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Monaco wasn't generous to ISR. The Czech team comes home from Round 3 of the F.Renault 3.5 championship with no points, a consequence of both Sergey Sirotkin and Christopher Zanella retiring from the race.
Christopher Zanella
Photo by: Renault Sport
After that yesterday the team's qualifying was spoiled by traffic, drivers knew that a difficult task lied ahead of them: starting from P18 and P19 respectively, Zanella and Sirotkin didn't have high aims for the race on a track where passing is nearly impossible, but they tried hard anyway.
The Swiss driver had a good start and managed to keep his position through a chaotic S.te Devote corner, and then started putting a lot of pressure on the rivals ahead. Anyway, Monaco is a treacherous track and after some laps, while braking at the exit of the tunnel, Christopher's car got out of shape on a bump and was sent sideways in the outside wall, causing a left rear puncture and some damage.
Zanella got back into the pits to change tyres and tried to drive to the end of the race, but the car was too damaged and he was forced to retire after spinning again in the Rascasse hairpin.Sirotkin's race was made even more difficult by a bad start that saw him slip from P19 to P24.
From then on Sergey knew his race was virtually over and so just tried to gather experience and post fast laps, leaving room from the drivers ahead and then pushing again. He eventually touched the barriers too and retired with two laps to go, being classified in P22.
Sergey Sirotkin - P22"Despite the result, I'm happy today. I knew that after having a bad qualifying session the race would have been difficult, but I made the most of it to learn as much as possible, an experience that I'm sure will prove useful next season. I also tried to post some fast laps, even if to do that I needed to back off a bit to create a gap to the guys ahead and then push hard, catching up again.
Overall, it wasn't the weekend we dreamt of, but we'll be ready to fight back in Spa."
Christopher Zanella (DNF): "Obviously I'm disappointed, but I wasn't expecting much after yesterday's qualifying. I had a good start and tried to push as much as I could, but then at the chicane braking zone my car was unsettled by the bump, and I coulnd't stop it from hitting the wall. After that the car wasn't straight anymore, but that didn't prevent me from improving my laptimes a lot once I changed tyres.
The pace was definitely there, and without being slowed by traffic in qualifying it would have been a different weekend".
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