FIA F2

Hockenheimring: Javier Villa weekend summary

Javier Villa made up for yesterday's disappointment at Hockenheim by driving a controlled, aggressive race in today's Feature event to finish 5th and increase his season's point score. Starting from 10th on the grid Javier made a good start and ...

Published: Jul 20, 2008, 2:00 PM

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Javier Villa made up for yesterday's disappointment at Hockenheim by driving a controlled, aggressive race in today's Feature event to finish 5th and increase his season's point score.

Starting from 10th on the grid Javier made a good start and gained a place on the opening lap to move up to 9th sandwiched between Senna and Grosjean despite having to lift off to avoid an accident at the first corner. Javi soon found himself in 7th as his team mate Giorgio Pantano and Andy Soucek made contact at the chicane and he quickly took advantage of the incident. Lap 4 saw the young Spaniard loose a place to yesterday's runner-up Grosjean but he kept close to the gearbox of the Frenchman whilst slowly pulling away from the chasing Tung.

Javier was now in a train of six cars that were being held up by Di Grassi which made overtaking difficult so he concentrated on holding his position. He improved by two more places on lap 7, moving up to 6th, as Di Grassi made contact with Maldonado and he continued to chase Grosjean as both men closed in on a battling Senna and Parente but Javi now found himself chasing Parente as Grosjean had passed the Portuguese driver. The Racing Engineering driver quickly closed the gap and on lap 11, in a great out-braking manoeuvre at the chicane, he passed Parent and took 5th place.

Javi was now some two seconds behind Grosjean and quickly pulling away from Parente but an off-course moment two laps later at the final corner saw him loosing time but not a position. Javi was now just over 4 seconds behind Grosjean and over the next 10 laps the gap remained static and with the gap to the 6th placed car increasing Javier settled for a very competitive 5th place at the finish.

The whole Hockenheim weekend has been a positive experience for Javier, he was very competitive in both races and he can now look forward with optimism to the next two races in Budapest in two weeks time.

Javier Villa own words: "We had a really good start and arrived to the first corner side by side with Giorgio but in front of us a couple of cars came together and I had to lift off a little bit which meant I got passed by three other cars. Even though I won a place and was ninth but it was a pity as the two or three places I lost there could have allowed me to fight for the podium. After that, the race pace was quite good, we had the second fastest lap and finished fifth. It was really difficult as yesterday crash left me with some pain in my right hand and the mechanics had to work hard overnight, barely sleeping, to have the car ready, so at least the final result made all that effort worthy and I want to thank then all for that.

These two races have shown how we can run at the front and that what was happening so far wasn't our fault, so from now own the target is to get more good results in the races left until the end of the season."

-credit: javiervilla.com

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