Quaife-Hobbs’ crash was a dramatic turn of events
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Adrian Quaife-Hobbs became the third Auto GP champion today in Curitiba, following in the footsteps of previous title winners Romain Grosjean and Kevin Ceccon.
The Briton crashed out of a race that he was dominating on lap 19, misjudging the braking point after entering the pit-lane and hitting the tyre wall. Despite this bitter ending, the 5th position clinched by Pål Varhaug meant that the SuperNova driver still ended the weekend with a 55 points lead on his Norwegian rival, 7 more than the 48 that will be available in Sonoma for the last round of the Series.
Quaife-Hobbs’ crash was a dramatic turn of events in a race that until that moment had offered a great show with a close battle between the SuperNova driver and Antonio Pizzonia. At the start Adrian took the lead from third spot on the grid while the home hero made an amazing getaway passing from P8 to P3. When Pizzonia passed Rafael Suzuki for 2nd place it became clear that his intention was to challenge for the win but on the other hand Quaife-Hobbs was already pushing hard posting laptimes in the high 1’12” range. The gap between the two never got bigger than 1” until the end of lap 7, when Pizzonia elected to pit and a wheelnut issue on the rear left tyre costed Ombra Racing a 5” delay in releasing the car. With SuperNova opting for a late pit-stop the two drivers weren’t seeing each other anymore but the battle continued nevertheless: Quaife-Hobbs had a 35” gap on Pizzonia, enough to exit in front of him with a mistakeless pit-stop, but when he entered the pit lane with 4 laps to go he missed the braking point and clipped the grass, losing control of the car and hitting the tyres.
This meant that Pizzonia inherited the lead and crossed the line with a 8” advantage on Chris Van der Drift and Daniel de Jong: the Manor MP Motorsport pair sealed the podium with a great performance: the kiwi driver started in fourth place and and then got third passing Suzuki early on, while his ducth team-mate recovered from P8 relying on the great race pace that he had already shown yesterday.
Sirotkin took the flag in 4th place after a very consistent showing, closing the race ahead of Pål Varhaug. The Virtuosi UK driver, who was starting from 7th on the grid, tried an early pit-stop strategy changing tyres on lap 4, but that didn’t give him a clear track as he had hoped. Stuck behind Sirotkin for the whole race, he managed to post the fastest lap of the race after Quaife-Hobbs crashing, but it wasn’t enough to keep title hopes alive.
Rafael Suzuki improved yesterday’s result with a good sixth place, finishing ahead of Max Snegirev and Sergio Campana, while Francesco Dracone and Giuseppe Cipriani rounded out the top ten.
Curitiba, Race 2: the drivers’ quotes
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs won the Auto GP title today in Curitiba despite crashing late into the race while entering the pits for his mandatory tyre change. Meanwhile, Antonio Pizzonia completed his incredible comeback on single-seaters with a second win that delighted the home crowd, ahead of Chris Van der Drift and Daniel de Jong who gave Manor MP Motorsport a much welcome double podium finish. Here is what they said after the race.
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, 2012 Auto GP Champion
Winning the title without even crossing the line is something that doesn’t happen often, what’s the feeling?
“It’s a bit weird, frankly. On one side I’m really down because that’s not how you want to win the title after such a dominating season. I was headed for a win, I would have celebrated the title on the higher step of the podium, that’s how it was meant to be. So, as I said, on one hand I’m really disappointed. On the other hand we started the season aiming at the title, we worked hard and we achieved our goal, so there’s a lot to be happy about. It’s just that now the disappointed side of me it’s a bit stronger. I’m sure that in a couple of days I will have forgotten this race and I will just be happy about the title”.
There’s still a race weekend in Sonoma to close the season in style…
“Exactly, and that’s what we’ll try to do. Looking at our season we always were the dominating force in the Series. If I look back I don’t recall anybody being able to challenge us in terms of pace. We were the ones running away when we were ahead, we were the ones doing the overtaking if we were starting behind due the reversed grid. We always started the race weekends with the only goal of winning, and Sonoma won’t be any different. I’m really looking forward to it”.
Antonio Pizzonia, Curitiba Race 2 winner
Clinching a double win in front of your home crowd must be an amazing feeling, tell us about it.
“It’s really amazing. I race in the Brazilian Stock Car championship at the moment so I’m used to racing in front of my countrymen, but it’s much different when you are racing at home in an International series as Auto GP. You can really feel that the people are behind you, pushing with their support. It’s a kind of reaction that I never experienced before, I really liked it a lot”.
Your start was a great one again and the battle in the first laps was really close. Then came the wheelnut problem in the pits, did you think that the race was lost at that point?
“Yeah, the guys had an issue with the left-rear corner and I think it costed us around 4-5 seconds. Anyway I didn’t think that our chances of winning the race were gone, I pushed as much as I could and in the end the gap from the lead was around 35”, still good to be right on Quaife-Hobbs’ tail after his pit-stop. Then he crashed and I inherited the lead, but I really think that even if that didn’t happen I had the pace to challenge for the win”.
Chris Van der Drift
Your race seemed to have no special strategies, just pushing from the beginning till the end…
“As I said this weekend we really did a good step ahead in terms of car setup, and qualifying definitely proved that. Anyway yesterday we still had some issues with uneven tyre wear, the left side had much more wear than the right one, so for today we did some changes that worked really well. I was quick and I managed to take P3 from Suzuki pretty quickly, that then became P2 after Adrian’s crash.
Then I saw Daniel in the mirrors and kept an eye on him until the checkered flag; I’m really happy that we are both on the podium, it’s a great result also for the team”.
Daniel de Jong
Finally back on the podium! Lately you got really close to it on a number of occasions but for many reasons it didn’t come together. How do you feel now?
“I feel great, being back on those steps is really good. In the last races we often had the pace to do it but there was always something that prevented me from making it. Sometimes I ended 4th, sometimes I did mistakes and sometimes I had glitches, but all in all it was a bit frustrating. Today it was different, and it’s a very good day for me Chris and Manor MP.
You got pretty close to your team-mate in the last laps, did you think you had the pace to overtake him?
“I was really quick this weekend, I proved that yesterday and today my pace was more or less the same. This allowed me to recover from a not perfect start, passing other cars on track as I did with Sirotkin for P4. Then when I reached Chris the team called on the radio to remember us that we were getting a great team result and spoiling it with a risky move wasn’t a good idea. Maybe I was a bit quicker than Chris at the end of the race but I don’t care, it was the right choice because now we can celebrate”.
source: Auto GP, autogp.org
CURITIBA RACE 2: SIROTKIN 4th , CAMPANA 8th
Euronova Racing’s Auto GP drivers, Sergey Sirotkin and Sergio Campana, both claimed points in today’s race at Curitiba when they finished in 4th and 8th places respectively.
Sirotkin started from 6th on the grid after his podium finish in yesterday’s race and maintained his position during the chaotic opening lap. He quickly dispatched Dracone to take 5th and then closed up on Suzuki for 4th. On lap 6 the Lukoil driver pitted for new tyres and rejoined just ahead of points rival Varhaug who had changed tyres the lap before. Varhaug put pressure on Sirotkin but could not get close enough to pass and then on lap 11 the battling duo were joined by Van Der Drift, who exited the pit lane just in front of them. When the three drivers, running nose to tail, came up behind La Rosa, De Jong used the opportunity to join their fight. He took advantage of a mistake by Varhaug to slot in behind Sirotkin and on lap 14 slipped past the Russian as well. Sirotkin was suffering from a gearbox problem and his car had momentarily gone into neutral which allowed De Jong to make his move. When the chequered flag fell nine laps later Sirotkin was still holding 4th place, having valiantly kept Varhaug behind him, therefore closing the gap to the Dutch man by 2 points in their battle for 2nd in the Championship.
Sergio Campana started from 10th on the grid and was running behind Snegirev in the early stages of the race. As soon as the pit lane opened the Italian came in for the obligatory change of tyres, as did Snegirev, and the Russian rejoined ahead of the Euronova driver. Campana closed to within a few tenths of a second of the Campos driver and on lap 19 got his nose ahead into the first corner but ran wide, put two wheels on the grass, and then fell back. He remained behind Snegirev until the chequered flag fell, concluding a difficult weekend with 8th place and three championship points.
The Auto GP Championship will finish in September with the final double header round which will take place at Sonoma. With the driver’s title decided today in favour of Quiafe-Hobbs, all eyes will be on the battle for 2nd between Sirotkin and Varhaug.
source: euronova-racing.com