Race Report

2015 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix
GP3 SERIES

Circuit: Spa-Francorchamps (B), Length 7,003 km, 22^nd/23^rd August 2015, Rounds 9 + 10
www.spa-francorchamps.be

JENZER MOTORSPORT 2015 mit:
Pal Varhaug (NOR), Mathéo Tuscher (CH) and Ralph Boschung (CH)

4th place for Tuscher and top ten for Jenzer trio

The GP3 Series met up at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps (B) circuit, as ever racing as one of the support races for the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix. This was their fifth outing out of a total of nine supporting the 2015 Grand Prix Programme.

Race One Qualifying

Saturday, 22/08/15, 09.45 – 10.15, Weather: Sunny, 20°C

The free practice session took place on Friday evening in rather beautiful weather, considering that we were at Spa. Our drivers were on a run and Ralph reached fantastic 3^rd place, Pal was 4^th and Mathéo directly behind in 5^th place. This was a super team performance!
It was also sunny on Saturday morning, and already 20°C warm at the start of the session. A faulty injector was soon detected on Ralphs car, and in spite of the engine people being able to repair the fault, there were not many laps left for Ralph to achieve a good lap time. Like this he reached 16^th place. Pal did quite well on his first set of tyres, but completly destroyed his second set with a spin. With that he reached 12^th position. Mathéo was well under way at the start of the session, but couldn’t improve enough in the middlesector with his second set. Like that he reached 8^th place on the starting grid for Race One.

GP3 Series

Race One (40 minutes)

Saturday, 22/08/15, 17.20, Weather: Sunny, 24°C

Here at Spa the freshly introduced Virtual Safety Car was going to play an important role. This was a new rule, which itroduced a situation as if under Safety Car, but without a real driving Safety Car. The difficulty with this is, that the drivers have to reduce speed massively, but must be prepared that at every likely moment the Virtual Safety Car can be ending within seconds and a restart would follow. To take this into account the drivers have to be ready continuedly with heated tyres and prepared for all possible attacks.
The start was delayed by 25 minutes because the GP2 race took longer.
Eriksson jumped the start, but then stood again, causing first wild maneuvres. Then Mardenborough had a rough accident colliding at the top of Eau Rouge, and with that the first Virtual Safety Car was deployed. At this stage Pal was 7^th, Mathéo 13^th and Ralph 19^th. At the restart Pal was surprised by Celis and fell back to 8th place. He held this popular place during several laps, in which he was also preserving his tyres. But Morris was pushing to the front and after a few unsuccessful attacks managed to dive past Pal at La Source. But at the top of Eau Rouge he got into trouble, and tightly following Pal had to avoid him, but was back on track with good momentum and wanted to continue the race. But then Morris spun back on track as well and hit Pal’s car in the rear. With that both spun off track and were out of the race. Mathéo had moved up to 10th place and had now Stuvik on his tail. When Visser parked her car in a dangerous position the Virtual Safety Car had to be deployed another time. At the restart Mathéo an Stuvik got together. This also ended with a crash and with both cars being stranded and out of the race. The Virtual Safety Car took over immediately again, until also these cars were cleared away. There was little time remaining but the restart was given and another lap was added outside the time schedule. Ralph, who had fallen back after the start had moved up the order little by little. At the last restart he was in 11^th place behind Fontana, who started an attack on Bosak for 9^th position. In the chicane just before the finishing line Ralph got his chance to take part in the maneuvre and to slip past Fontana for 10^th place. With that he also gathered the last point on offer. After the race Mathéo was handed a penalty for causing the collision with Stuvik and therefore had to start five places further back in the second race. Morris was penalized for causing the collision with Pal and had to start from the pitlande. And Eriksson was handed a Drive Through penalty again, which he had served already under Virtual Safety Car, but which he was not allowed to do so. With that he fell back to 11^th place, which meant that Ralph moved up to 9^th place. Also race winner Ocon was handed a penalty. He had pushed the gas at one of the restarts a bit too early, rather before the green light was shown. He was moved back to 2^nd place, and Bernstorff inherited the win.

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 the finishing order in the first race.

GP3 Series

Race Two (30 minutes)

Sunday, 23/08/15, 09.25, Weather: Sunny, 20°C

The discussion concerning the experiment with the „Virtual Safety Car“ was held until deep into the night. Finally it was decided not to go on with it. Because GP3 doesn’t employ a GPS system, which would enable the officials to check on each drivers actions reliably, how it can be done in GP2 or in F1. With that the „normal“ Safety Car was back at Spa for use in the second race of the weekend, and rules were the same as always.
The start went well, Ralph was 9^th, Pal 12^th and Mathéo already up in 15^th. Then Bosak was in trouble and even took out Parry, with that both cars landed fairly damaged in the out. The Safety Car had to be deployed, until the widely strewn part could be cleared away. Shortly after the restart Fuoco and Kirchhofer got together, and this new accident called for the Safety Car to be deployed immediately again. Our drivers were very lucky to be able to get past Fuocos car on both sides, while it wildly shot across the track. During the incident our drivers imporved their positions considerably. Ralph was now already up in 6^th, Mathéo was 8^th and Pal was 10^th. One lap later Mathéo had passed Janosz and presently appeared in Ralph’s mirrors. Mathéo started an attack at the chicane, but it didn’t work out to overtake Ralph. Soon afterwards Mathéo was on Ralphs side, they touched and the endplate on Ralphs front wing got razored off. None backed off but Mathéo carried slightly more speed and was through. Mathéo was far from having enough and soon went for Fontana. And in the very last lap also Palou saw now way to withold Mathéo from overtaking him. With that Mathéo reached the finishing line after a lightning drive, which he had started from 20^th position. This splendid 4^th place was also Mathéos best result in this season. Ralph had lost momentum after the contact with Mathéo and soon had to give in to the hard attacks from Janosz. Ralph still finished this run in excellent 8^th place. Pal had held onto his very good 10^th position for the second part of the race and with that top ten finish rounded up the super team permormance in this exciting race.

The next race will take place at the last venue in Europe in two week’s time at Monza (I).

Championship standings after 10 out of 16 races:

1^st Luca Ghiotto (I), 154 points; 2^nd Esteban Ocon (F), 126 points; 3^rd Marvin Kirchhofer (D), 113 points; 4^th Emil Bernstorff (GB), 100 points; 5^th Kevin Ceccon (I), 54 points; 6^th Jimmy Eriksson (FIN), 50 points; 10^th Ralph Boschung (CH), 23 points; 15^th Mathéo Tuscher (CH), 8 points; 19^th Pal Varhaug (NOR), 4 points

2015 GP3 Series

For more information:

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