The 24-year-old Styrian finishes in 11th place after a crash through no fault of his own
Andreas Zuber wasn’t able to shake off the „curse" of the sprint races in the GP2-season 2008 at the British circuit in Silverstone. The 24-year-old Styrian took up the race, which commenced during heavy rainfall, from the first row since he had finished seventh at yesterday’s run and the first eight start in reversed order. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to take advantage of his good position since he, like several times this season, had starting problems.
Thus he immediately was overtaken by Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi and dropped back to fourth place. Zuber: "At the start I once more had the electronics problem with the clutch. The same as my teammate Pator Maldonado, by the way, who got off even worse and couldn’t drive off at all for a while."
And the unlucky streak continued. Already in the first of 24 laps the Moser Medical Group driver became the innocent victim of a crash. "Grosjean crashed right into my rear. This completely distorted the whole suspension. Additionally I had to come in for a pit stop to change a tyre", explains Zuber. When he came back onto the course in 18th place the sprint race was as good as over for Andreas Zuber even though he managed to move up to eleventh place in the end in a run which was characterised by numerous spins and crashs.
Zuber: "After the pit stop I naturally tried to make good some places but since the suspension was twisted it was difficult to even keep the car on the circuit. That’s why I spun several times. I nevertheless have to say that I was rather satisfied with my speed. Ha everything gone normal I would have stood a good chance of being with the top."
A lot of hard work awaits the Piquet Sports-driver and his team in any case: "We definitely have to get to grips with this electronics problem until Hockenheim. Or else the problems at the start will keep returning."
The winner’s laurels were handed to Brazilian Bruno Senna in front of Lucas di Grassi (Italy) who repeated his second place from yesterday. Saturday’s winner and overall leader Giorgio Pantano from Italy came in third.
The runs 11 and 12 of the GP2-season 2008 will take place in Hockenheim on July 19 and 20.
Final result of the sprint race in Silverstone:
1. Bruno Senna (Bra) iSport
2. Lucas di Grassi (Bra) Campos +8.598 sec.
3. Giorgio Pantano (Ita) Racing Engineering +9.420 sec.
4. Mike Conway (GB) Trident +17.748 sec.
5. Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Campos +23.390 sec.
6. Davide Valsecchi (Ita) iSport +1:02.921 min.
…
11. Andreas Zuber (Aut) Piquet Sport +1 lap
Driver overall ranking GP2 (after ten runs):
1. Giorgio Pantano 50 points, 2. Bruno Senna 39, 3. Sebastian Buemi 25, 4. Lucas di Grassi 24, 5. Romain Grosjean 23, 6. Andreas Zuber, Alvaro Parente, Vitaly Petrov, Karun Chandhok 19 points each.
www.andreas-zuber.com
- Andreas Walk, Armin Holenia, Martin Meyer-
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