April 14, 2012
Published on tags: Supercup
The first three races of the GPVWC Supercup Season have flown by; however, if there is
one team already feeling the strain of the 2012 season it's Malta Force GP.

It
was never the case that the reigning champions were expecting to start where
they left off in Singapore. It was clear from the on-set that the 2012 season
was going to be the most competitive Supercup season by a long way. With the
loss of 2011 champion Bart De Vos team principle and lead driver Jason Muscat
was cautious in his expectations by claiming he would be happy with both cars
in the top 10. Muscat, however, is known to have underestimated himself in the
past and will surely be a little disappointed with the way the season has gone
so far.



The Maltese
duo of Muscat and Grech achieved their goal of top 10 qualifying results in
Melbourne. After 1 lap the two cars ran 4th and 5th.
Muscat was the faster of the two on race pace and was let through. However a
scrappy race followed with several spins and incidents leaving him to finish 11th
while Grech drove a slow and steady race to 10th. At one point
during the race both cars came into the pits together which earned them
criticism from the commentary team and leaving onlookers wondering where it had
all gone wrong.




Things
didn't improve much for the next round in qualifying. Grech put in a good
effort to qualify 7th while Muscat lingered down in 12th.
It was Muscat however that made the best of the start and ran as high as 4th
in the early stages. Grech suffered with damage from the opening laps and
struggled home to 9th. Muscat gained a position on the final lap to
take 6th which was by any means an improvement on the Melbourne
result.






Abu Dhabi
followed with the duo lining up 6th and 9th, the team's
best qualifying performance this season with Muscat leading the way. A poor
start for Muscat however let Grech through and the pair collided just as Muscat
ran into a technical failure on lap 1 ending his race and throwing away what
could have been a great result. Grech also had problems and was unable to bring
back any points for the team.






The team
suffered a huge blow on the Yas Marina Island, however, the slogans of courage,
commitment and determination on the Malta Force GP team website will be sure to
keep them focussed for the rest of the season.
While the team are a long way off the kind of performance they were
displaying last season things are clearly getting better in terms of raw pace
and we should expect to see Malta Force consistently scoring good points and
the odd podium for the rest of the season. And after that who knows?