Rain confuses EuroCup practices

2010. szeptember 17. 18:46 | még nem szólt hozzá senki.  szerző: Viktor Adorján

The action has begun in Valencia with the first free practices of the SEAT Leon EuroCup before the title deciding races to be held tomorrow and on Sunday. It was a tough start of the weekend for the drivers with not much reliable facts to build on. Weather is expected to play a prominent role.

Valencia hosts the ultimate round of the 2010 SEAT Leon EuroCup season when the title battle reaches conclusion among Gábor Wéber, Michael Rossi and Eoin Murray. The three major contender are joined by several well known drivers from the Spanish series including 2008 EuroCup champion Oscar Nogués and other competitive personalities like Pol Rossell.

It was expected that the guest drivers' appearance will spice up the order but despite they were high on the timetable on Friday, it was the weather that played the key role on the opening practice sessions and it is likely that its major input will remain for the rest of the weekend.

Rossi rules Practice 1

Zengő-Dension Team's drivers started the weekend in a low key fashion in terms of results on Free Practice 1 as title contender Gábor Wéber claimed 7th on the initial 30 minutes with a 1:48.304 which was 1.219 seconds slower than pace setter Michael Rossi's 1:47.085.

The comparison of the ideal and best laptimes indicate that Wéber was further from an ideal laptime as he was 0.448 secs slower than what he could have done but this was  not enough reasons for Wéber not to be dissatisfied with the situation and labeled the session as "the worst one so far this year".

Rossi, Wéber's main rival in the title hunt was more than half a second faster than second placed Oscar Nogués who finished ahead Pepe Oriola. Wéber was the fastest in the Zengő-Dension Team fleet as Duarte Félix da Costa ended up 14th with more than 2 seconds behind Rossi. Andrea Larini and EuroCup returnee György Kontra finished 17th and 18th respectively while Imre Birizdó ended the session on P22.

Arnau Niubó: "This says nothing"

After reviewing the result of Free Practice 2, Arnau Niubó, technical director of Zengő-Dension Team's WTCC operation declared that there was only a little to read out of the timetable. The Catalan engineer was pointed on the fact that rain affected the session and the final classification was determined by the tire choices the drivers and teams made.

All the frontrunners opted to put on a fresh set of slick rubber towards the closing stage of the session when the sun and the field started to dry up the circuit very quickly, therefore the times improved rapidly.

This made it possible that Gábor Wéber only took P17 with a 2:02.580 which is clearly not in the same league of the fastest drivers including Pepe Oriola who did a 1:54.260. Based on this the laptimes are clearly not key issues and the positions are not either.

However for the historical record it should be noted that Oriola topped the timesheet with a 1:54.260 ahead Nogués (+0.066) and Lourenco Veiga. Rossi finished 11th, Wéber was 20th, da Costa ended up 22nd while Birizdó and Larini took 24th and 25th.

Weather is a major concern

This is not the first occasion when the weather steps into the picture as it was a decisive factor two years ago and this spring as well when the drivers had to deal with surprisingly cold temperatures and rain as well. This year it is warm and humid with the chance of a downpour always there.

Most racing drivers who need to deal with the pressure of delivering are tend to avoid these kind of conditions but simply there is no way not to understand the challenge the changeable weather poses. Therefore the team has started to outline different scenarios for the "what ifs" as it is even harder to predict now what will happen than it used to be.

Qualification for tomorrow's Race 1 will take place at 10:30 before the first battle at 14:20. Three drivers of Zengő-Dension Team will face a 5 place grid penalty, which means that no matter where Gábor Wéber, Duarte Félix da Costa and Andrea Larini end up, they will line up for the grid 5 places behind where they qualified for Race 1.

With the changeable weather conditions, the tight competition and the big stake tomorrow should be a spectacular and very interesting day in the history of the SEAT Leon EuroCup.

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