Robert Doornbos Silverstone summary

DOORNBOS 11TH IN SILVERSTONE

The first race weekend of the new Superleague Formula season didn't meet the expectations for Robert Doornbos, who is driving for Brazilian club Corinthians this season.

Starting from the last row of the grid in race 1 Robert Doornbos used all of his talent to gain positions. A fast pitstop from the team in a race over 45 minutes saw him crossing the line in 11th.

The result of the first race is reversed to determine the starting grid for race 2, so Robert was 6th on the grid. The race ended up in a great battle with Franck Montagny, also an ex-F1 driver, participating for Bordeaux. The spectacular battle for seventh ended in favour of Robert.

Not a good weekend but Corinthians does take important points for the championship in both races.

Doornbos : "Because there was no testing before the season everybody had to deliver immediately and so I consider this a bit as being a test weekend. We had problems with the car setup, it demanded too much of the tires. Mechanically everything is fine but we just need to find more grip. We do have good data from the second race that will help us a lot during the next meeting, my home race in Assen, in a month's time."

Marc Giannone, engineer of the Corinthians car : "It's the first time I work with Robert and I enjoyed it. He is a renowned driver and he brings a lot of experience to the team. Unfortunately we had higher expectations of this weekend and some things didn't go to plan. As a team we will work hard to get more speed in the car for the following race."

-source: robert doornbos