Playteam SaraFree garners a podium for race 1 of round 5 at the new Valencia track

- Ferrari F430 no.3 – Michele Maceratesi Andrea Montermini
1st qualifying session (Montermini): 2:08:445 – 1st
1st free practice (Montermini-Maceratesi): 2:13:274 – 1st
2nd free practice (Montermini-Maceratesi): 2:09:561 – 5th

- Ferrari F430 no.4 – Manuel Giao Pedro Couceiro
1st qualifying session (Giao): 2:09:165 – 3rd
1st free practice (Giao-Couceiro): 2:16:284 – 16th
2nd free practice (Giao-Couceiro): 2:10:085 – 6th

The Portuguese co-drivers, Manuel Gião and Pedro Couceiro, took another podium finish, although Couceiro, suffering from the intense heat could not physically be on the rostrum for the first ever race on the new downtown Valencia track. It was an all Ferrari podium that Championship leaders Montermini-Maceratesi could not share despite qualifying in pole for race 1, because they were forced to retire by an ignition problem during the pit stop.

The starting grid was very premising with Andrea Montermini at pole and Pedro Couceiro, leaving from second row. The start was very hot, with both Couceiro and Serra overtaking poleman Montermini in the straight but having to allow the Italian re-take the lead in the first corner. Doing so, the Ferrari F430 no. 4 gained a few positions at the start and moved ahead of Montermini.

Montermini took back his lead position but on lap 8 Ferrari F430 no. 28 driven by Brazilian star Daniel Serra (the son of former F.1 Chico). The Brazilian had qualified in a brilliant second position and won his battle with Couceiro for second place and started catching up to Montermini. The latter at that point was leading with a 4.5" gap. On lap 12 the Portuguese had to let Fässler pass as well.

The Ferrari no. 4 driver Pedro Couceiro turned the car over to teammate Manuel Giao in 4th position. Giao started pushing hard and despite a 5" handicap managed to recapture the third position. But, the driver change stop on the 15th lap was fatal to the leaders because the Playteam Ferrari no. 3 refused to start again as Maceratesi took over the wheel from Andrea Montermini.

"I was happy in the qualifying. We had done a good job. The track is very interesting. It is very diversified and quite long. There is a bit of all difficulties: it is slow and fast at the same time. You need to be fast and you need to brake and adapt accelerations to the different corners. Our results with the pole were promising despite the heat over the city.

This will make for a difficult race, but we have worked well, so we should be able to adapt," said Andrea Montermini after qualifying. He went on to add when talking about the race itself, "From the start everything was going well. The car was running fine. When I came into the box for the driver’s change, something unpredictable happened and we could not start the engine. To be forced to drop out of the race when you are the leader is a bit tough and disappointing!"

"Qualifications for race 1 were tough. There was traffic all the time, and I did not manage to have a clear lap. At one point, the team told me that I was only classified 15th and I realized that the tires were suffering, I only had one way to go: I pushed as much as I could and managed a stronger time that brought me to third." It was a bit of a miracle remembers Giao.

"In the race, when I took over from Pedro, the temperatures of the tires were quite high. It was a bit tricky controlling the car. I would have liked to win the race, of course, but I am fantastically happy to have managed to score podium points for this first race."

- Agnes Carlier - photo Playteam Sarafree