Race Report

Formula 1 Gran Premio de Espana 2014
GP3 SERIES

Circuit: Barcelona (E), Length 4.655 km, 10^th/11^th May 2014, Rounds 1 & 2
www.circuitcat.com

JENZER MOTORSPORT 2014:
Pal Varhaug (NOR), Mathéo Tuscher (CH) and Adderly Fong (PRC)

Podium for Tuscher at Barcelona

The GP3 Series teams met for the first event of the season as part of the Formula One programme at the Gran Premio de Espana 2014, held on the challenging Barcelona circuit in Spain. The sun shone throughout the weekend, and the pleasant conditions went a long way towards making it very obvious just how close the competition is within the 27-strong field.

Race One Qualifying

Saturday, 10/05/14, 09.45 – 10.15, Weather: Sunny, 17°C

Free practice on Friday evening took place in warm temperatures and on a dry track. Our drivers were running well, but were not able to get the best out of the new tyres, because the yellow flags were shown so frequently in the middle sector. Mathéo ended up 12^th with Adderly 14^th and Pal 15^th.
The track was equally dry for the first qualifying session of the new season. Pal and Mathéo both put in very good performances and both claimed places in the top ten. Adderly drove his best sector times on different laps, and therefore could not repeat his performance from free practice.

GP3 Series

Race One (30 Minutes)

Saturday, 10/05/14, 17.20, Weather: Sunny, 22°C

The first start of the first race of the new season didn’t go well when Kirchhoefer stalled and the start had to be aborted. He managed to take up his original place again during the new green flag lap, and to start from his original position on the grid and the second start went well. There were many overtaking attempts and several small accidents during the course of the first lap. Mathéo got away well and found himself in 8^th by the end of the first lap. Pal, on the other hand, got sandwiched and fell back to 11^th. Adderly held 17^th place until someone hit him from behind meaning he had to pit to have a flat tyre replaced. He rejoined the race, but soon after found that his rear wing was quite badly damaged, and he had to return to the pits and retire from the race. Pal was fighting with Fontana, who managed to overtake him after a few laps, putting him 12^th. He managed to keep Visoiu behind him for the rest of the race, and hung on to position all the way to the finish line. Mathéo was the only rookie in a group of six, who were running within 5 seconds of 6^th place, with Zamparelli 6^th, Stoneman 7^th, Tuscher 8^th, Yelloly 9^th, Niederhauser 10^th, and Fontana 11^th. Mathéo could almost feel Yelloly breathing down his neck, but he stayed focussed, and drove a strong race. Yelloly never really had a chance to overtake him and Mathéo was very proud of 8^th place in his very first GP3 Series race. This meant that he would start from pole position in Sunday‘s race.

The grid for the second race of the weekend was set by reversing the order of the first eight finishers in the first race, with the rest of the places set according to finishing order in the first race.

GP3 Series

Race Two (30 Minutes)

Sunday, 11/05/14, 09.25, Weather: Cloudy, 16°C

There was light rain in the morning, and the track was still a little wet in places, but everyone started on slick tyres. Mathéo got off to a very good start, took the lead and tried to get away a little, but Stoneman piled on the pressure and managed to get past Mathéo at the end of the first lap. From then on the order was Stoneman, Tuscher and Zamparelli. Pal also made a good start and held 12^th place, while Adderly was up to 19^th. A little later the Safety Car had to take charge of the field, because a car was stranded in a dangerous position. Shortly after the restart Celis tried to get past Pal. The manoeuvre didn’t work, he hit Pal’s rear tyre and both of them ended up in the gravel trap, which was a shame! There were continuous changes throughout the order and Adderly was soon up to 15^th, after which he drove well, managing to come home in a good 12^th place. The track was drying slowly during the race, and lap times were 15 seconds faster at the end than at the start! Mathéo again put in a strong performance and was able to adapt to the changing conditions very well. He was also able to put pressure on Stoneman towards the end of the race, but there was no chance of overtaking. However, Mathéo can be very proud of his first race weekend in the new Series.

We are already looking forward to the next race at the RedBull Ring in June.

Championship standings after 2 out of 16 races:

1^st Alex Lynn (GB), 31 points; 2^nd Richi Stanaway (NZ), 23 points; 3^rd Jimmy Eriksson (SWE), 22 points; 4^th Dean Stoneman (GB) 21 points; 5^th Dino Zamparelli (GB), 18 points; 6^th Mathéo Tuscher (CH), 16 points; 6^th Marvin Kirchhöfer (D), 16 points

2014 GP3 Series

For more information:

• www.gp3series.com
• www.italiaracing.net