FIA F2

Monza: Racing Engineering qualifying report

Traffic hampers drivers' efforts in qualifying During today's GP2 qualifying session at the Autodromo di Monza, both Fat Burner Racing Engineering drivers, Lucas Di Grassi and Dani Clos, tried to obtain the best results possible before taking ...

Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:16 PM

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Traffic hampers drivers' efforts in qualifying

During today's GP2 qualifying session at the Autodromo di Monza, both Fat Burner Racing Engineering drivers, Lucas Di Grassi and Dani Clos, tried to obtain the best results possible before taking into account their respective 10-place grid penalty handed over two weeks ago in Spa-Francorchamps.

After familiarizing themselves with the conditions at the Italian track and working on their respective car set ups, Lucas finished today's free practice session in second, and Dani in sixteenth position. Both Fat Burner Racing Engineering drivers approached the afternoon qualifying session by keeping in mind that ten grid positions would be added to their final results. Clearly the aim was to finish qualifying as well as possible in order to limit the damage.

Lucas and Dani were able to show a very promising pace during the first half of the session. Lucas placed himself in second position and was eager to improve on his lap time of 1:30.530 even further, but was slowed down by D'Ambrosio on his fastest lap. Dani, on the other hand, was 7th on the timing screen during the first part of the session, dropping back to tenth shortly before he entered the pits. Both Fat Burner Racing Engineering drivers came into the pitlane after 10 minutes in the session to have some minor changes applied to their cars. As a consequence, they both lost positions and dropped back to fifth and fourteenth, respectively.

But traffic was not only an issue for Lucas, but also for Dani. When both drivers rejoined the session with a bit less than ten minutes to go left, the Spaniard's second run was hampered by other drivers while he was trying to set faster lap times and improve the final standings. Lucas was able to improve on his lap time and clocked a 1:30.504. However, this was not enough and he had to conform himself with 5th place. Considering the penalty handed over from Spa, the Fat Burner Racing Engineering driver will start Saturday's feature race from 15th position on the grid. His teammate Dani finished the session in 14th position, which results in 24th position on the grid for race 1 at Monza.

Lucas Di Grassi: Qualifying was OK. I was held up by another car on my fastest lap, which is a bit of a shame. But my car was fine, well balanced. So for tomorrow we have the penalty and we therefore start at the back. This means we need to change our strategy and approach the race differently. Nevertheless, it's a long race and we will see what happens.

Dani Clos: The beginning of the session wasn't too bad. We then came into the pits for some changes. From the very beginning of the session the brakes didn't work too well, but I think this is a general problem in the paddock this weekend. Well, for tomorrow things are complicated as we are starting from the back of the field, but I will give my best in order to make up positions.

Alfonso de Orleans-Borbon, Team President: Traffic definitely harmed our drivers' performances this afternoon. We would have liked to have them higher up the timing sheets, but then again, with 10 positions added for both of them, we knew that Saturday's race might be complicated. But who knows, maybe they are able to keep out of trouble and show some great racing tomorrow as we know their cars are well set up and it's going to be a long race here in Italy. I would like to thank our boys, who are doing a great job putting two competitive cars on track weekend after weekend, they definitely need something to boot their morale.

-credit: re

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