Race Report

2015 Formula 1 Gran Premio d’Italia
GP3 SERIES

Circuit: Monza (I), Length 5.793 km, 05^th/06^th September 2015, Rounds 11 + 12
www.monzanet.it

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

Top Ten for Tuscher and Boschung at Monza

The GP3 Series met up at the very fast Monza (I) circuit, as ever racing as one of the support races for the Formula 1 Gran Premio d’Italia 2015. This was their sixth and last outing in Europe supporting the 2015 Grand Prix Programme. The weather was already quite autumnal with a mix of sun and rain, which meant that conditions were quite demanding.

Race One Qualifying

Saturday, 05/09/15, 09.45 – 10.15, Weather: Rain, 16°C

Free practice on Friday evening took place on a dry track. Mathéo set a good 7^th fastest time, Ralph was 10^th and Pal 17^th.
Following heavy rain and thunderstorms, the track was declared wet ahead of the thirty minute qualifying session for Round 6 of the 2015 GP3 Series season. Temperatures were much cooler than yesterday’s Free Practice with the drivers proving tentative in the early stages, the the spray being an early factor. Towards the end conditions improved a little, and everybody went back out on track. It was very difficult to set a good lap time in the two or three laps which were available. Mathéo set the 12^th best time and Pal was 15^th. Shortly after the start of the session Ralph’s car developed an engine problem which unfortunately this couldn’t be solved in the time available.

GP3 Series

Race One (40 minutes)

Saturday, 05/09/15, 17.20, Weather: Cloudy, 22°C

The storm had passed and the weather was good again in the afternoon. Ghiotto stalled at the start and failed to get away, but the rest of the field managed to avoid him without any big problems. However, Pal soon tangled with Janosz and had to retire with a damaged car. Ralph had moved up from 21^st place to 11^th in the course of the first lap, and Mathéo was already up to 8^th having made good starts and avoided all of the incidents. They both made sensible moves and were able to get through cleanly. Mathéo hung onto 8th place for many a lap until Morris made a mistake and dropped back. That moved Mathéo up to 7^th, a position he held for the remainder of the race. Ralph overtook Fontana and then held onto 10^th for most of the race, only losing the place to Fontana towards the end of the race. Ralph finished the race in a decent 11^th place.
After the race two cars were found to be underweight, and Parry and Morris were excluded from the results. This meant that Mathéo moved up to 6^th place, and Ralph to 9^th, which meant they both scored points in this 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 the finishing order in the first race.

GP3 Series

Race Two (30 minutes)

Sunday, 06/09/15, 09.25, Weather: Sunny, 18°C

Pal didn’t was unable to start at the beginning of the green flag lap and had to be pushed back into the pitlane. Shortly before the start, Janosz signalled that he had a problem, and the start procedure was aborted. A second green flag lap was run, while Pal waited in the pitlane. When the field finally moved off Mathéo managed to slip past Palou for 2^nd place. Ralph held 9^th and Pal had moved up to 18^th. Mathéo was pushing to pass Fontana for the lead, but he ran wide and by the time he’d recovered he was 4^th, but because his tyres were now dirty two more cars went past him. Mathéo was now 6^th but was beginning to set better lap times again. Ralph had overtaken Palou and was running in 8^th. Ghiotto, who was rolling up the field from the back, didn’t take long to overtake Ralph, and even less time to catch and pass Mathéo. When Bernstoff and Fontana tangled and dropped back, this meant Mathéo was back up to 6^th again, with Ralph behind him in 7^th. Mathéo and Ralph both managed to come home to claim these fantastic places which meant the two of them again collected useful points. Pal was super quick after the start and set the third fastest lap time of the race, moving up the order steadily to take the flag in 14^th place.

The next race of the GP3 Series takes place in five weeks’ time at Sochi (RUS).

Championship standings after 12 out of 18 races:

1^st Luca Ghiotto (I), 170 points; 2^nd Esteban Ocon (F), 156 points; 3^rd Marvin Kirchhofer (D), 140 points; 4^th Emil Bernstorff (GB), 127 points; 5^th Kevin Ceccon (I), 77 points; 6^th Jimmy Eriksson (FIN), 66 points; 10^th Ralph Boschung (CH), 27 points; 11^th Mathéo Tuscher (CH), 22 points; 19^th Pal Varhaug (NOR), 4 points

2015 GP3 Series

For more information:

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