FIA F2
Silverstone: Javier Villa qualifying report
Javier Villa is starting tomorrow's GP2 Feature Race at Silverstone from the seventh row of the grid after setting the 13th fastest time in the qualifying session held this afternoon. The two sessions, practice and qualifying, that marked the ...
Published: Jul 5, 2008, 2:26 PM
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Javier Villa is starting tomorrow's GP2 Feature Race at Silverstone from the seventh row of the grid after setting the 13th fastest time in the qualifying session held this afternoon.
The two sessions, practice and qualifying, that marked the beginning of the fifth race weekend of the 2008 GP2 series, was marked by the difficulties most teams had to get the best results from the tyres. The high demands of the fast British track on the medium compound rubber has given a few headaches to engineers and drivers throughout the day, with some graining issues, especially for the rears. Generally the best times were unusually being set using the first set of fresh rubber, something not really typical for most GP2 timed sessions.
Javi couldn't escape this trend, having issues from the morning free practice in setting up the car in order to get the best from its tyres, something that he didn't manage to fully achieve even if his laptimes were improving as the day went on. After completing fifteen laps in the morning, scoring the 17th fastest time on a fairly dirty track due to the F1 practice held a few minutes before, the Spaniard continued to progress in the afternoon, cutting eight tenths from his previous best to finish 13th.
As well as gaining places in the timelist, the most important thing regarding Villa's performance was that in qualifying he got closer to the front row times, finishing 1.2 seconds shy of pole position when in the morning he was more than one and a half seconds from the quickest time. This means that, as usual, the field is tightly packed which should mean a really competitive race tomorrow. There is the added factor of the possibility of rain, predicted in most weather forecasts for the weekend, Javi's target will be to finish among the top eight to score points and also get a good starting position for Sunday's sprint race.
Javier Villa's own words:
"Thirteenth isn't that bad, at least is far better than twenty-something like the other day and from here you can fight. In qualifying I improved from free practice, it was a good step forward but we need more and as we didn't find exactly what's happening it will be hard. Tomorrow's race will be complicated as we are all having tyre wear issues with the medium compound tyres, especially on the rears. If it's a dry race that will be quite a factor to deal with although it looks like it could rain. Our aim is to score points and if it's a wet race it could be better for us as with the rain all are more equal."
-credit: javiervilla.com
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