In Faster Than Speed's 199th World Championship outing, the team had a difficult race at Suzuka, with both John-Eric Saxen and Giuseppe Marconi finishing the Japanese GP outside the points in 13th and 15th places respectively.
FTS is getting ready to celebrate a very special milestone: it will take part in its 200th World Championship GP next weekend in Korea!
In the World Championship, John-Eric Saxen drove a good lap in Q1, which however, fell just a tenth of a second short of the top-10, not allowing him to get a Q2 spot and leaving him 11th on the grid. Team-mate Giuseppe Marconi qualified 21st.
John-Eric made a good start, gaining a couple of places to finish the opening lap in 9th place. John-Eric drove a good race, with a conventional 4-stop strategy, which became difficult as several cars queued behind the slower cars of the 3-stopping De Wit and Lapchin.
On lap 15, John-Eric finally showed he is human, after what had been a completely faultless season so far. After attacking Brljak, he ran slightly wide out of Degnar 1 and lost control of his FTS-P12, performing a frightening 360° spin at high speed. He was lucky his car never left the track or hit anything, meaning John-Eric was able to continue with only a position lost and a minimal time loss. Just a couple of laps later, John-Eric recovered the position he had lost by overtaking Patrick De Wit with a classy inside move into Turns 1 and 2.
The ground lost behind slower 3-stopping drivers, however, made it impossible for John-Eric to make his 4-stop strategy work, and he finished outside the points in 13th place.
Giuseppe made a good start, gaining 5 spots on the first lap. He also drove a 4-stop race, showing strong pace and being involved in several tight battles with other drivers. In such a difficult race, however, his efforts did not allow him to battle for points, finishing in 15th.
John-Eric Saxen (13th): "Not the ideal weekend this time. A decent Qualifying lap was not enough to start in the top-10, but I was not too worried, starting in P11. In the first corner I managed to pass a couple of cars on the outside to take P9. At this point I found myself behind a queue of the 3-stopping De Wit and Lapchin, while everyone else, including me, was on 4-stoppers.
After the first pitstops I lost some ground and later on, I lost focus momentarily in Degner 1 on lap 15, which caused a scary 360 degree spin. Very lucky to have come out of that with only a 3 seconds time loss. This meant I had to pass De Wit again, which I did a couple of laps later into turn 1.
At this point I had lost too much ground to the 4-stoppers ahead, so the remaining race turned out to be a battle with Fredrik Nilsson. Towards the end of the race he overtook me with a brilliant move into the chicane, which meant finishing outside the points this time. Overall, a quite unimpressive weekend, but still a couple of good tracks remaining."
Giuseppe Marconi (15th): "It was a fun race, with a lot of battles throughout the race. I didn't make any mistakes and was also happy with my pace."
Faster Than Speed will celebrate a very special milestone at next weekend's inaugural Korean GP. At Yeongam, FTS will take part in its 200th World Championship GP, becoming the first FSR team to reach such a feat. Stay tuned for a few surprises! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@FTS_Racing) and Google+ for the latest news and live coverage from Korea and #FTS200!
Faster Than Speed
Press Release
http://www.fts-racing.net
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