GP2 Championship 2008
The Super Nova team have arrived in Germany in the south west region of Baden-Württemberg, where the Hockenheimring plays host to this years’ German Grand Prix, which is now annually alternated with the Nurburgring.
Entering the sixth round of the GP2 ‘08 season, the team put behind them the frustrations of Silverstone a fortnight ago, and worked on strong set up for qualifying this afternoon.
After morning rain the track dried for the 30-minute session which finished with all twenty-six cars qualifying within a close 3 seconds of each other.
The team’s Portuguese driver Alvaro Parente put in a solid effort around the 4.57km track, running amongst the quickest on his first set of tyres. Unable to improve on his second outing, Alvaro will start 7th on the grid for tomorrows Feature race.
Having never raced at Hockenheim before, Andy Soucek used free practice to familiarise himself with the lay out. He will start 16th on the grid, aiming to utilise the long back straight to overtake and finish in the points.
Team Principal David Sears "In qualifying today Alvaro Parente improved a lot from the past couple of races, and in fact at one point looked like he would be on the front, but finally ended up 7th, much closer to the front than recently.
Andy Soucek was probably one of the only drivers to go out today having no previous racing circuit knowledge. Andy ended up 16th, but the team feel sure he will improve from there in the race tomorrow. The weather will still be the deciding factor as there is forecasted sunshine and showers over the next couple of days"
Alvaro Parente Q7 1:22.391 "It’s a better qualifying result. On the first set of tyres put I put in a good lap. On the second set we did a small change, but didn’t improve my time, which I was hoping & expecting. The improvement is very good though, which I hope will continue throughout the weekend."
Andy Soucek Q16 1:22.992 "It was tough qualifying today. In free practice the track was very slippery, & I spun twice in corner 12, probably the most technical part of the circuit. So in qualifying on my first set, I was not very happy or confident & lost time in this last sector. However on my last set of tyres, in the last sector I made up 4/10th. I hear it’s going to rain, so I am prepared for this. I’m hoping to take advantage of the overtaking opportunities here tomorrow and try to push my way to the front!"
P1 Giorgio Pantano RACING ENGINEERING 1:21.650
P2 Romain Grosjean ART GRAND PRIX 1:21.934
P3 Andreas Zuber PIQUET SPORTS 1:22.004
- Super Nova -
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