Hockenheimring: Stefano Coletti weekend summary

POLE MISSED BY A WHISKER AND SECOND PLACE FOR STEFANO COLETTI AT HOCKENHEIM

05/09/2010 - Hockenheim's weekend, the seventh of round of the World Series by Renault 2010, ended for Stefano Coletti with the second place harvested today in race two.

The young driver from Monaco appeared to be in great shape since Friday when he set the third fastest lap in the first free practice session (1'28.810), with a laptime on used tyres. A misunderstanding with a rival in the initial stages of race two, leading to a contact between the two, prevented Coletti to continue the work on new tyres, conditioning the result of qualifying.

The driver for team Comtec defended himself very well in qualifying held yesterday and set the tenth fastest lap (1'27.751) despite having few reference points and the need for some small setup interventions that had not been identified during the first session of free practice; a penalty for not respecting the track line relegated him afterwards to the fourteenth place of the grid.

Coletti scored a good recovery in race one thanks to a series of overtaking in the initial stages that took him to the final seventh place.

This morning, in the second round of qualifying, the driver from Monaco fought for the pole position until the very last seconds, but an overtaking in his final attempt did not allow him to improve his time of 1'26.884. Third on the grid, Coletti kept his position for the entire race; the subsequent disqualification of Daniel Zampieri (Pons) awared him in the evening the second step of the podium. Coletti is currently fifth in the updated classification with 59 points. The standings are lead by Aleshin (Carlin) at 111 points, followed by Ricciardo (Tech 1) at 101 and Guerrieri (ISR) at 85.

Stefano Coletti:
"I am half-way satisfied: on the one side I defeated the curse of the third place, even if in a kind of strange way, on the other side in qualifying I missed a concrete chance of victory. Yesterday, after the episode in the second free practice on Friday, it was difficult to start in front while the pole position was well at my reach today. Unfortunately an overtaking cost me those tenths that made the difference on race two's grid. Now I just miss the top step of the podium in the World Series: two rounds are still to be run on tracks that I like, the car is competitive therefore I will do my best to finish the season with at least one success".

The World Series by Renault will be back on track next 19 September at Silverstone.

-source: Stefano Coletti