South African Adrian Zaugg, who represents his country in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, scored an important podium finish before an influential audience when he finished second in a World Series by Renault race, curtain raiser to the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix in the streets of Monte Carlo on Sunday.
The 22-year-old, who drives for the Austrian Interwetten.com Racing team, just missed out on pole position after a great qualifying performance on Saturday saw him record the third fastest lap time behind Britons Oliver Turvey (Carlin Motorsport) and James Walker (PI Motorsport).
He went on to score a significant second place, six tenths of a second behind Turvey at the end of the 25-lap race, watched by the managers and drivers of the Formula 1 teams assembled for the sixth round of the FIA World Championship.
“I had the best theoretical lap in qualifying, but just lost it by 57 hundredths of a second in the last sector of the final lap of the session,” said Zaugg.
“I had a great race, passing Walker into the first turn at the start – one of the few opportunities to pass at Monaco. I was quicker than Turvey, especially in the final 10 laps, but there was never any real chance for passing during the race. I needed to get some more points as we weren’t so lucky in the opening two rounds in Spain and Belgium.”
With the 12 points he earned on Sunday to go with the 14 he had already accumulated, he now lies sixth in the championship with 26 points, 21 behind series leader Marcos Martinez of Spain. Bertrand Baguette of Belgium is second with 43 points and Walker is third with 38.
“I was very happy to get such a good result in front of the F1 teams,” said Zaugg. “A big ‘thank-you’ to the Interwetten.com Racing team for having faith in me and giving me a competitive car this weekend.”
Zaugg only signed with his team one week before the opening round of the Formula Renault 3.5 championship in Barcelona, missing out on the pre-season testing. Given his lack of seat time in the car, his performance in Monaco and the fact that he is already challenging for a win in a series that has produced current F1 drivers Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber) and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault) will have given his reputation a big boost.”
Fellow A1GP drivers Chris van der Drift (New Zealand), John Martin (Australia) and Fairuz Fauzy (Malaysia) finished 7th, 12th and 15th respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment