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Istanbul: Javier Villa Friday notes

It was quite a complicated day for Javier Villa today at Istanbul Park as the young Spaniard suffered unforeseen mechanical woes during free practice that limited his track time. This in turn ended up compromising his chances in the crucial ...

Edited: Sep 8, 2007, 3:35 AM

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It was quite a complicated day for Javier Villa today at Istanbul Park as the young Spaniard suffered unforeseen mechanical woes during free practice that limited his track time. This in turn ended up compromising his chances in the crucial qualifying session as he spun and finished at the back of the grid in 24th spot for tomorrow's Feature Race. Villa and his team arrived very motivated and with great hopes at the Turkish track but it wasn't long before things went wrong. A gearbox problem in free practice meant Javi and his engineer had almost no time to work on the car setup. With just seven laps in the 30 minutes practice session and no chance to press hard it was almost impossible to improve the car setup and the first target soon became to detect and fix the problem in time for the next session.

When qualifying started Javi's car was again in perfect condition and the Spaniard soon went out looking for a good lap time as soon as possible but the combination of the limited track time in free practice, the resulting unsorted setup and the driver's determination to set a good time combined to produce a spin on his third timed lap that finished his chances. With the engine stopped and no way to restart it, Villa was forced to follow the remaining minutes of the session as a spectator, watching as his time was improved on by most of his rivals and finishing in a lowly 24th position for tomorrow's starting grid. Despite this disappointing outcome neither Javi not his team, Racing Engineering, have given up hope and they are already thinking about looking for a good recovery race tomorrow. Istanbul Park has got several overtaking spots and the car's behavior was good while on track and without problems so Javi is confident he can put on a good show tomorrow in his usual Feature Race style by recovering a lot of places from the back of the grid.

Javier Villa's own words:

"During free practice I suffered from a problem with the gearbox, but for qualifying everything was fine and we were able to push. On my third timed lap I spun and the engine stopped, I couldn't start it again and the session was therefore quickly over for me. We start from the back tomorrow, but the track here is wide so overtaking is possible. I'm hoping for a good race tomorrow."

-credit: www.javiervilla.com

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