Jeddah Corniche Circuit

SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX

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March 13, 2012
Published on tags: Formula Challenge
The UltraNet Networks GPVWC Formula Challenge kicked off last Wednesday at the magnificent but tricky Brands Hatch circuit in the South East of England. This circuit was the perfect test for the drivers due to it’s amount of high speed corners which unsettle the car and cause the driver to make quick reactions. 


Qualifying ended with Emanuel Gaczella on pole position ahead of Jim Prisis by over three and a half tenths of a second. Both Torrent and Storm car finished qualifying in the top 5, whilst Janne Vaananen managed to qualify in 4th in his Tiger Express car. 1 second covered 5th to 12th place with a further second between the cars from 13th to 19th. Miguel Macedo was disqualified from qualifying so would start at the back. The closeness of the grid showed us that the feature race would be close but also that the sprint race could have an unexpected winner, only time would tell whether this was true. 


The formation lap started for the viewers with the splash screen being showed rather than the track feed but halfway round the correct feed was shown thanks to Twitter. Gavin Thomas decided to start in the pitlane in 23rd position for the feature race.


The race started cleanly with all cars getting through the first sector correctly however into Graham Hill bend there was a collision between 4 cars. Janne moved up to third, with Jarl Teinen making a great start moving up to 5th place by the end of lap 1. Coming across the line Jim was incredibly close to Gaczella, only 0.3 seconds behind him, Gavin Thomas retired on lap one. The battle between Parisis and Gaczella really started to heat up on lap two with Parisis trying to overtake. This set the trend for the rest of the race. However on lap 14 Jim managed to muscle his way Gaczella only to be re-overtaken a few corners later due to better drive out of the corner and with a top speed advantage he easily went up the inside of Jim again. Parisis then pitted for fuel and tires hoping his faster lap times would give him the “undercut” on Gaczella. 


Further down the field there were a lot of interesting battles taking place for position. The drivers showing that they would be capable of racing cleanly in a higher tier. 


Everyone was wondering how much longer Gaczella could stay out. Lap after lap he pounded round the circuit mistake free. After his pitstop he just came out in front of Jim and the pair would then do battle once again. Gaczella made a mistake into Graham Hill with 3 laps to go and then Jim cruised to victory.


The sprint race has a reversed grid feature, which means that Jim Parises started at the back. (just in-front of the non-finishers from race 1.) This race was just as exciting as the feature due to a lot of battles happening throughout the field. With 1 corner to go on the last lap Jim was battling hard with Jarl, after both Jim and Gaczella made thier way through the field. Unfortuantly he took too much kurb into the last corner and spun the car, he still managed to finish second though just 9.1 seconds behind race winner Jarl Teien. 


Hi all. Just a personal note from me. I am the new reporter for the FC. I know in this report I only really mentioned the front runners, I also did not go into as much detail as I would like, but this was due to not knowing about doing this job until Wednesday. I will be making notes whilst watching all the FC races and am going to mention everyone by the end of this season, so if you could excuse this slightly iffy review of the first race I would be grateful and I look forward to hearing your criticisms and highlights as we progress throughout the year - Lewis Redshaw