FIA F2
Hockenheimring: DPR qualifying report
PETROV ON ACCELERATED LEARNING CURVE IN HOCKENHEIM DPR drivers qualified in 16th and 23rd places for tomorrow's first GP2 race of the Hockenheim Grand Prix weekend. Clivio Piccione of Monaco was disappointed to be as low as 16th, having had a ...
Edited: Jul 29, 2006, 7:12 PM
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PETROV ON ACCELERATED LEARNING CURVE IN HOCKENHEIM
DPR drivers qualified in 16th and 23rd places for tomorrow's first GP2 race of the Hockenheim Grand Prix weekend. Clivio Piccione of Monaco was disappointed to be as low as 16th, having had a positive test session in the morning and no problems with his car.
He unfortunately had to abort his first flying lap as yellow flags came out for an incident involving Valles, and was then blocked on his second attempt (and second set of new tyres) by another car which was on its warming up lap. Looking at the individual sector times, the team is confident that without these incidents Clivio would have been in the top six.
For DPR new boy Vitaly Petrov there has been a huge learning curve for his first time out in a GP2 car. The biggest hurdle for him to overcome is to learn to left-foot brake, something he has never had to do before. He has also never before used a paddle shift gear selector, and never driven on the full Hockenheim track. He has, however, embraced all these things with great enthusiasm and made steady progress through the day, slicing a second off his lap times from the morning's practice through to the afternoon's qualifying where he posted a time which put him 23rd on the grid.
A beaming Petrov said after qualifying, "I really like the car; it is totally different to anything I have driven in my life. It will be difficult to switch back to a slower car as I love the speed. I want to stay with this car and this team! Thank you to the engineers and the team who re- arranged the car in a way to make it very comfortable for me to drive."
Team Principal David Price was enjoying mixed emotions. "I'm disappointed that Clivio didn't qualify where we thought he would, in fact, where he should have done. But, Vitaly has done a very good job considering hurdles he had to overcome in a short space of time. He's fitted into the team extremely well."
-dpr
k
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