Safety car periods in both 50-minute races meant the pitstop handicap system didn’t get the chance to play out as intended. But the cards fell right for Julien Lemoine and Clement Moreno (ANS Motorsport) on Saturday and Holzem (driving solo for Rinaldi Racing) on Sunday.
Race 1
The Saturday encounter was really a case of ‘whoever stays out of trouble wins’. That said, the safety car definitely played its part in the outcome.
The first entry to hit strife was the Inter Europol Ligier – and it all began in the first qualifying session. Mozambican driver Pedro Perino went straight on at Turn 1 and hit the barriers at 165kph, mere moments after he had set a time good enough to secure pole. The 18-year-old felt grateful to escape with nothing more than a sore back after what he described as a brake failure. And despite some frantic repair efforts, the car couldn’t make it out in time to take up its place at the front of the grid.
That left solo racers Sandro Holzem (Rinaldi Racing Duqueine) and Danny Soufi (Konrad Motorsport Ligier) to fight it out at the front in the first half of the race.
Both of these drivers had to sit for the maximum handicap time (151 seconds) in the pits due to their ‘silver’ status, but the lead they had built up in an attempt to cover this was wiped out by a safety car shortly before the pit window. And any chance of winning despite that stroke of fate was shot down by dramas in the second half of the race. While Holzem lost several seconds to a spin, Soufi had a problem with the ‘button box’ that meant his ignition kept cutting out over the final minutes.
Others who could have cashed in on all of this were Chris Short/Wyatt Brichacek (DKR Engineering Duqueine) and solo runner Bernardo Pinheiro (Mühlner Motorsport Duqueine). But Short flat-spotted all four tyres when he spun early in the race, which meant he handed over a hobbled car to Brichacek at the car’s 120s halt. And Pinheiro lost 39 seconds when he inadvertently shut down the car instead of hitting the ignition after his (151s) pitstop.
Source: Autosport