Timo and Jérôme both bring their cars home in the European Grand Prix in Valencia
The team scored its fifth double finish of the season today, in a European Grand Prix that will go into the history books as only the third time in Formula One history that all the cars that have lined up on the grid have made it to the finish - the others being Monza 2005 and Zandvoort in 1961.
Timo got off to an awesome start, blasting past both of the Lotus pair, and even passing a Toro Rosso at one point. But as soon as DRS was enabled by Race Control, the close followers were able to use the speed advantage provided and get back in front.
Jérôme got off to a good start too, but was unable to pass Liuzzi until he stopped for new rubber about a third of the way into the race. From this point it was more or less plain sailing round the Valencia harbour, with the two cars running on their own and the planned two-stopper worked well.
Timo finished 21st with Jérôme 22nd, which isn't much reward for a good performance but that's racing!
Timo Glock
“Quite a positive weekend for us I think. Everything ran smoothly and I had no real problems during the three days. In the race itself I had a very good opening lap and I overtook both the Lotus cars and a Toro Rosso, although he got right back past me straight away. Once the DRS was enabled I couldn’t keep Heikki and Jarno behind me and after that I just ran my own race. I was quite comfortable being able to run at a good pace although at the end we had a bit of a fuel pick-up problem and I had to save fuel. But in general I’m very happy with the weekend and I’ve retained my lap record here. It’s a bit of a shame to have a good race and still finish 21st where you started, but with nobody having technical issues or first lap incidents, that’s all you can do.”
Jérôme D’Ambrosio
“I’m obviously much happier with today’s race than with yesterday’s qualifying result. Even though I lost quite a lot of time in the first stint when I was held up by Liuzzi, I had a good second stint and all this is great experience for me. The main thing for me right now is to improve on my Saturday performance, but overall I’m happy with my weekend and to have finished another race.”
John Booth, Team Principal
“Overall a pleasing result with both cars taking the flag and Jérôme improving from his qualifying position yesterday by overtaking Liuzzi on track. This means that the cars finished in the correct pace order compared to our direct rivals. Looking on the positive side, we seem to have moved closer towards our nearest competitor ahead of us on the grid, however with such strong reliability throughout the field it’s a little disappointing to end up 21st and 22nd. We got the strategy about right, although perhaps we should have stopped Jerome slightly earlier in the first stint as he was just falling into the second stage of tyre degradation but unfortunately we were already stopping Timo on that lap. Towards the end of the race with Timo we spotted an issue with fuel dropouts in turn 1, which meant he was having to back off. We now head back to the factory for a longer than usual period, ahead of our home race at Silverstone. We are all very excited about working in the new pits and we’re hoping to keep up our current momentum for the next few races.”
Credit: Virgin Racing (www.virginracing.com)
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