Kernow Sports Round 6 Report: Monaco

Another raft of downforce updates for the car were well timed and allowed us to qualify the #12 in the top 6 (started 5th). Our pit crew had been training hard and were also now faster with the stops then previous. With Dan and Sven unavailable this week we had to take the step to hire an emergency driver: Morten Wernersen. The Dane, at short notice, offered his services to tackle this challenging track in the #83.

TM Wicks: "The nature of this track means that a good qualifying is key to a possible good race. With very few passing places or opportunities you need to be at the front and keeping it clean. Bart had got away well and ran P5 for his opening stint. A 4 stop strategy materialised for him and he ran a good, quick and clean race. At one point he happened to get stuck behind a slower car on softs when needing to make up time on his supersofts, but ultimately the race started to come Bart's way. Some late race passing and very fast laps got him up to 4th with a few laps to go and he wonderfully managed to catch and pass an Edonis with 3 laps to go to take 3rd place.

I spent the whole race as a nervous mess, not least because the garages lost all TV feed mid-race, leaving me with only the timing screen to keep track of things. When Bart's name jumped above Eros into 3rd I punched the air and then waited with anxiety to see him cross the line. It was such a massive joy and relief when he did so. He drove superbly and thoroughly deserves this result. The whole team does after coming back from the doldrums we'd been in the previous years. This result should help spur us on to achieve more, as it underlines the belief we can do well, even on extreme circuits like Monaco. Today I'm one very happy manager!

Our new driver for the night, Morten, hadn't had much time in a Superleague car prior to the event and Monaco is difficult enough after hours of practice. So he did really well to bring the car safely home 17th. We're thankful for his effort in filling in and putting himself through the rigours of a Monaco GP for us."

#12 De Vos (3rd): "So Monaco, I wasn't looking forward to this race too much, never been able to get very good results here in the past. But this year we came with a well-developed car, and with a good setup and preparation. I was surprised by my Q position, 6th, one of my better quali runs. Start was clean at the front, from there on it was driving in a train until the first stops. Tires were holding on surprisingly well. The original plan was to go all soft from there on, so I did put on the soft tires. Still behind David, then he got in an incident, which didn't look good... Lewis was much quicker on supersofts and pulled off a great move on me in T1, that ruined my strategy and I decided to use all supersoft from there on. Bad decision as I was stuck for an entire stint behind Eros on older soft tires. After that stint I came out 8th and knew I would have to start pushing hard and actually start overtaking some cars (the idea frightened me, but I saw Lewis do it). I quickly was able to pass Mindaugas and had some clear road. Meanwhile Lewis was stuck behind Francesconi, so I was able to catch back up. I decided to try and get the undercut on him. Didn't work, but I was on better tires, it was going to be a very interesting end to the race, but unfortunately he had a penalty. Meanwhile Eros was still in 3rd, doing a very long stint on supersofts. With tires that old I was able to catch up pretty soon. I had one big moment when the rear snapped with DRS open. Eventually I was able to make the pass for 3rd for my first SL podium in 5 years' time. It feels good to finally put the Kernow on the podium after all the hard work we've all been doing this year."

#83 Wernersen (17th): "Got the ok from Mark to drive on Tuesday before the race, and had my SC race to prepare and do for Wednesday, and with a family meeting on Thursday, it didn't give me a lot of time to learn the car and find a setup; got a setup from Bart, which I managed to adapt to my driving style, so I just focused on getting some laps in to get more used to the car and finding a good setup for the race. Along came qually: I, to my big surprise, managed to cut 1.3sek of my pb time with a 1.17 flat, and saw myself in 19th, I was just happy not to be last! Race: The start was fairly clean, not many, if any, crashes, so I kept my 19th place for the first couple of laps, had some aggressive drivers behind me, which I just decided to let past as I didn?t want to get tangled up in anything, at the end of my first stint I started to have problems with my front left tire, as I kept locking up, pitted at about lap 13 or 14, and whacked on a new set of supersofts, had to adjust the break balance for the 2nd stint to try and prevent the front from locking up, it seemed to work, during my 2nd stint I started to have a good little scrap with Ben Willis, and that lasted almost half the race, in my 3rd stint I went for the softs, and just spooled off laps and tried keeping out of the leaders way, had another pitstop, I started to loose count of laps and stops by now, back to the supersofts, and back to the battle with Willis, came out of the pits with 5,5sek up to Ben but closed it down after two laps! and was right behind him as we went into the last corner, Ben got a wipple wopple out of the exit and I saw my chance to get past on the right, so I whacked open the DRS, which then resulted in me having a wipple wopple as my rear decided it wanted to be the front of the car, and I had to manhandle it back in line, unfortunately this resulted in me and Ben having a little get together, and Ben losing his front wing, so this left me with nothing more to do than just getting the car to the finish, had yet another pitstop to do, and put on yet another set of supersofts, was bored and decided to see how fast I could go, so did a 17.1 and had to ease off a little to not pass some of the guys who were a lap ahead of me, if only I had that pace at the start of the race, anyway got the car home in 17th place, was hoping for a point or two, but that didn?t happen, I'm just happy Bart had a podium it's a great result for the team! And thanks to Mark for letting me drive!"

Points: 59
Position: 8th