New Delhi: JK Tyre prodigy Aditya Patel finished in ninth place in Round 8 of the JK Racing Asia Series at the prestigious Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps.
Patel said the best battle he had was with Ernie Van der Walt of Meritus.GP and said “He passed me and I passed him back and we were wheel to wheel a few times, it was the closest and longest fight I had on this track. I had good fun this weekend, at Spa its always fun.”
The Indian driver did not make any changes to the car setup yesterday as he was happy with its pace. “I don’t know, with my driving I tried pretty much everything but I just couldn’t turn the car into any corner. I tried braking early, braking late, turning early, turning late, turning fast, turning slow, every combination possible but I just was losing time every time, we will just see the data and find out”, commented Aditya about his performance in the race.
South African Rookie driver, Aston Hare claimed another win for Eurointernational at a wet Spa Francorchamps Circuit today for Round 8 of the JK Racing Asia Series. Hare and his teammates, Nabil Jeffri and Tan Wei Ron completed another clean sweep of the podium for Eurointernational
The outing today was declared a wet race with Jeffri lining up on the grid on pole with Hare in second whilst Irfan Ilyas and Tan Wei Ron lined up on row two. Jeffri did not have a good start, spinning his wheel and allowing Hare and Tan to pass him.
From there, Hare started to open up a gap but Jeffri started to make paces and took Tan on lap two before closing in on Hare towards the end of the race. It was some great driving from the duo in the last few laps of the race when they drove nose to tail with Jeffri trying from the inside and outside to find a way past. But in the end, Hare held on to his lead taking the chequered flag just 0.3seconds ahead of the Malaysian.
“My starts this season hasn’t been really good and I finally got off the line cleanly and took the first position at the first corner. Got through the first corner in one piece and from there I pulled a little bit of a gap maybe would give me a little bit of a breather for the race. But obviously not as Nabil is a good fighter, he came back strong and throughout the race I just had to hold him off and I tell you it wasn’t easy, I had to really hold him off.
“A few times I thought he got past but I was just able to hold him and I took the chequered flag. I am happy with the win.
“It’s a very wide track, a few times he almost got a switchback on me. I was just able to hold him and I thought at the last corner he might have just got me. He came around the outside into the Bus Stop, I was just able to hold him. A few times I saw him run off the track maybe he lost a bit of time there but overall it was a good race” said Hare at the Post Race Press Conference.
Speaking of the battle between him and his teammate for the Championship, Hare said “He is fast everywhere. Its not going to be easy, I’ve got a 12 points difference now, I brought it down by five. The rest of the tracks, he has been to so it will be harder for a Rookie. But I will definitely fight hard and hopefully I can pull it off at the end of the year” ended Hare.
“It was a very enjoyable race, one of the best races for me this year. Even though my start was bad but I managed to catch up after a few laps. After getting past Ron, I just went straight for Aston and I was behind him for a few laps until the end of the race.
“He was very good in defending his line and we had a few scary moments especially at the fast turns but it was a very good race at the end. I was thinking about my Championship points. To me it was important to leave Spa leading the Championship” said Jeffri.
For Tan, the Caterham Driver Development driver from Malaysia and racing with Eurointernational, had the best view of the dogfight between the two leading drivers. “Towards the end, I thought I had the possibility while the two of them were fighting, but there weren’t enough laps and the pace that I was coming wasn’t fast enough so the best finish was third.
“I didn’t really have a good start. I came in fifth at the start Aditya passed me but I took Irfan and Aditya after the first lap and I started to build the rhythm as it goes and after that it got better and better. From there I was slowly catching Aston and Nabil but the pace wasn’t fast enough” ended Tan.
Despite being happy with the results of the weekend, with his drivers claiming all podium in Rounds 7 & 8, Antonio Ferrari, team owner of Eurointernational will still be having a little bit of a serious discussion with his drivers. “Its good, I am very happy, especially in Spa. Two weeks ago we won here with Formula 3, we own this place” he said with a smile.
“All four has been on the podium just depends on the positions. The team by itself showed that we didn’t have any problems, we won in the wet and we won in the dry. We fought each other, I didn’t like that so I screamed a little bit on the radio but the rest was good and now we just look forward to the next one”.
Aditya “I really don’t know what happened, I just couldn’t find any grip on the car but I had a really good start. First lap was really good, everybody was bunched up but after that no matter what I did I could not find any grip and I was all over the place. There is really not much I can do.
Ilyas finished the race in fourth ahead of Aidan Wright who was right in the middle of a five way battle for fifth. In the end Wright claimed fifth ahead of his Meritus.GP teammate, Afiq Ikhwan, Eurasia Motorsport’s Danial Hidzir, Meritus.GP’s Ernie Van der Walt and US Formula Project’s Aditya Patel in ninth.
Ikhwan had a good start and was right in the middle of the battle, despite being unhappy with the pace of his car, he had a lot of fun fighting for positions. “I had a good start but the car just did not suit the conditions so I struggled a lot with the setup. We will try and fix the problem and find out what was the main thing why the car is not suited for this condition”. Once he realised he was unable to catch the leaders, Ikhwan just tried to maintain his position to get the best points for the Championship.
Josh Raneri stayed mostly out of trouble from the battling five to finish in the top ten whilst Guest Driver Alexis van de Poele of Belgium and Toby Earle were the last of the finishers in the wet race.
