Portugese GP: Free Practice and Qualifying Report
motorsport-live.com May 7th, 2016
We are in sunny Tondela for a dry weekend here in front of the European crowd... and one of those words is wrong... as free practice kicked off together with a shower of rain that threw a lot of practice schedules out of the window and it took the teams some juggling to get the times in on the tyres they wanted.
"We had little time on the soft compound for qualifying due to the time on the intermediate, but we'll get it to work,"
Rick De Graaf of
Rezzato said after the session. It stayed dry after the first pour down.
Getting in some laps on the soft compound were
Harry Chapman(1:23.973) and
Zoe Sharp(1:24.167) in the
Steinmann and
Panther, the kings of the time sheet here.
Qualifying started in the dry, and it was
Aki Lipponen once again who set the first benchmark, a 1:21.134, but it was the
Steinmann that had the last word in the first go as
Chapman put a 1:20.830 on the board, the first in the 20's,
Chapman,
Lipponen and
Holtz with the two
Rossini's that came here with a big upgrade, fourth and sixth.
But,
Wexler found some pace in the second attempt as he and
Sharp were the only runners in the front to gain with the
Rossini getting in in P2 and the
Panther into P4.
Another pole position for the
Steinmann racing team, but World Championship leader
Wexler is right besides him with
Lipponen P3!
Team Radio of the Day:
"Nailed it, P1. First into the 20's, great job Harry" –
"Jeeehaaaaw, catch me now boys!"
Harry Chapman,
Steinmann, after the attempt that got him the pole.
--
Juust a little bit off the pace. Wanna bet on us getting lapped again? You won't get good odds I guess, we are way slower than the rest. In practice, we this time focused on the hard tyre despite the turtle pictures in my mind, maybe we can steal a pitstop, going for a 1-stopper if our guys take care of the tyres.
Or we embarass ourselves again...