Faster Than Speed finally opened its 2011 World Championship's point tally as Patrick De Wit secured his first point of the season after a last-lap move on Blair Disley at Istanbul Park.
2002 Champion Ernesto De Angelis made his FTS works team debut as his team mate, after a short stint with FTS NetRex in 2009.
Gabriel Montañes, meanwhile, scored World Series points after a tough start to the Turkish race.
Despite setting a lap that would have comfortably taken him into Q2 minutes earlier in the Practice session, Patrick De Wit was unable to produce a similar laptime in Q1, setting the 15th fastest time. Team mate and Faster Than Speed's newest sign-up, Ernesto De Angelis, was just behind in 17th. The Italian's race was unfortunately not a sucess, having to retire early due to damage on his right sidepod after being hit by Euler, despite showing strong potential.
Patrick, meanwhile, made another characteristic strong start to the race, overtaking several cars to finish the opening lap in 11th place. Despite having to pit slightly earlier than planned due to a higher than expected tyre wear on his high fuel load, Patrick drove a strong and consistent race. However, with a 34-lap long final stint, his 10th place came under pressure from the 2-stopping Disley, who was on much fresher tyres with a 10-lap long final stint. The Australian passed Patrick on the penultimate lap and it seemed like Patrick's hopes for points were over. However, in the final lap, Patrick took a very good run out of Turn 1 to go side by side and overtake Disley into Turn 3, snatching the final point to open the team's point tally this season with his 10th place finish.
Patrick De Wit (10th): "After a dramatic Qualifying, I was only P15, so I really had no hopes for the race. I had an OK start and climbed from 15th to 11th. Then, Keithley made a mistake in the famous Turn 8, which left me 10th and trying to maintain this position really hard. I had hard fights with Saxen, Disley and Tali. Four laps from the end I was almost losing my final points position to a fast recovering Disley. We had a really hard battle, very aggressive from both of us, but it was good fun. Really happy to score my first points in the World Championship this year!"
Ernesto De Angelis (DNF): "Well, can't say much, would have needed laps to get a decent pace but my car was damaged in an incident with Euler. After that, it was simply like driving a weird tank, so it would have been useless to keep on trying impossible things."
In the World Series, Giuseppe Marconi was unable to show the strong testing pace, as he retired early on after spinning off on cold tyres. Team mate Gabriel Montañes also had a tough start, having a big scare after losing control of his car, hitting a kerb and flying off the ground. Miraculously, his FTS-P11 remained unscatched and Gabriel was able to recover and score points by finishing 17th.
Juan Nicola was the team's sole representative in the World Trophy division. However, Juan had a difficult race and was unable to go the distance, retiring from the race with 10 laps remaining.
Faster Than Speed will now be hoping for another point-scoring finish this Sunday, when the rescheduled World Championship's Malaysian GP will be raced at Sepang. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news from Malaysia, and stay tuned for the race's Live Broadcasts here!
Exclusive pictures and videos available in our Facebook page!
Faster Than Speed
Press Release
http://www.fts-racing.net
![Luca [OT]](/data/avatars/s/3235/3235113.jpg?1697196734){kind=avatar}
