Points scoring finish for Will Stevens at Silverstone

British racer Will Stevens took his eighth points-scoring finish in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship with ninth place in race two at Silverstone today. Despite suffering from understeer the Oxshott, Surrey, ace posted the fourth fastest time in his qualifying group and headed into the race hoping to repeat the form that took him to his sixth podium finish of the year yesterday.


The formation of the grid for the races are dictated by the driver with the fastest lap time overall from both groups taking pole position and the rest of the drivers in that group aligned behind, meaning the 20 year-old would start from the fourth row. At the start of the 14 lap race around the new Silverstone Arena circuit Stevens was looking for a good getaway to help his chances, and a fast start allowed him to get the jump on Carlos Sainz into turn one. Heading into the Maggotts/Becketts complex however, Daniil Kvyat found a way past demoting Stevens to eighth before the end of lap one.


For the opening three laps Stevens held eighth until a rare minor error allowed a recovering Sainz to repass him. Over the closing laps, Stevens increasingly struggled with lack of grip and consequently it was impossible for him to progress any further up the field. Regardless, Stevens' skill ensured he held fast to secure ninth and another point-scoring finish.


His Silverstone form secures fourth in the championship standings, with four races remaining. With just two DNFs, due to mechanical problems in Spain’s opening race and Hungary’s second race being the only blips in an otherwise points perfect season so far, Stevens now turns his focus to the penultimate series rounds at Paul Ricard.


“In qualifying we underestimated the track change from yesterday and had a lot less grip and a bit of understeer in the high speed corners,” said Will. “In the race I made a good start and managed to get by Sainz going into the first corner. We had quite a good pace at the beginning but then I lost the place to Kvyat who got the run on me out of Becketts.


“Then I started to struggle with understeer and a lack of grip, which resulted in me making a mistake coming out of Club allowing Sainz to get past. The pace went right off towards the end, particularly in sector one and sector three, we just didn’t have the balance right.


“But, looking ahead, we go into the next rounds the way we always do, looking to win. So now we’ll go back and look at the data and see where we struggled today and hopefully we can sort it all out before Paul Ricard.”


The next double-header rounds at Paul Ricard, France take place over the weekend of 17/18 September.



Will Stevens from Oxshott, Surrey competes in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship with Fortec Motorsport, one of the UK's most successful single-seater racing teams.


While he was still racing karts, winning the British, European and Asian-Pacific kart championships, Will was singled out by the Honda F1 team as a star of the future and was signed up to the team that took Jenson Button to the Formula One World title.  With the sale of Brawn to Mercedes in 2009, the driver programme ended but Will's career had only just begun.


Moving out of karts in 2008, Will graduated to Formula Renault, a series that has set many of the world’s top drivers on the road to Formula One, finishing eighth in his first single-seater campaign, the Winter Cup. Progressing to the main series in 2009, Will finished seventh in the title battle, dovetailing that with an impressive third-place finish in the Toyota Racing International Series in New Zealand.


Consistently impressive results across every formula raced as he climbs through the single-seater racing ranks, Will earned status as a BRDC Rising Star in 2010 – one of only 400 of the 20,000 UK licence-holders.  He was also recruited as a member of the MSA Team UK last year, an elite national squad of the UK’s most promising race and rally drivers.


Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0

Formula Renault has been an essential stage in the career of many young drivers for almost 30 years, and been the starting point for F1 stars including Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica, Jaime Alguersuari and Kimi Raikkonen. The latest version of the world’s best selling single-seater has been designed to give young drivers aiming to graduate to Formula One the chance to learn about a race car with features and handling similar to those used in the more prestigious categories, and offer the perfect tool to hone their talent.
 


- Cathy Metcalfe-