Another round has gone by at FSR WC

After the last championship round, GhostSpeed kept enduring a tough time at Istanbul. Lining up short of drivers for the Turkish round, the team only had one racer at the World Series, and at the world Championship the participation was conditioned by the holiday’s period, and although that may not be taken as an excuse, it had an impact on the team preparation for the last part of the European season.

 

 

Stephane Rouault was the man in action at the Ace World Series, a race used as a last time training ground for the World Championship race. The Dutch driver showed is class by being 2nd at the qualification, and finishing 4th in the Turkish Ace race. Besides only having one driver, GhostSpeed still managed to climb one more place at the Teams standings, being now 4th. Disley still keeps the drivers lead.

At the World Championship, things would turn out very though. With the racing levels reaching new heights, Stephane and Disley (that only made the WC race) had both a huge task ahead of them.

Both drivers had a good performance and made the most of the tip drivers penalizations. Disley placed himself in a strong 8th position, while Rouault still making up for the lack of practise, got himself P13.

Race would see both GhostSpeed drivers racing almost all race within points door. Although Rouault made a good start, his lack of practise and a race incident early in the race, would seal his destiny by finishing only one position from were he originally started. Disley made a good race, in his own pace, and made the most of his two stop strategy, to climb once more to a points finish. The Australian driver got another P8.

Another tough weekend for GhostSpeed Racing Team, minimized by some good results from both drivers given the circumstances.

Next week team goes to Monza in hope to have a more calm weekend.

Blair Disley (AUS) 8th, World Championship Race comments:
"Blessed to finished in 8th and can't complain about that. I didn't put enough practise in for this race and obviously that hurt my race pace. Thankfully some others had problems and my strategy just worked out that I could finish in 8th place."

Stephane Rouault (NL) 12th, World Championship Race comments:
"I had done the ACE race, and in that race, my fastest lap was a 27,5. But after the ACE race, my practice laps had been doubled. So I knew I should do better in the WC race.

Qualify was real hard. Only a few tenths better, would’ve meant 5 positions difference. So competition is hard, luckily because of penalties, my starting position was 13th. I had a very exciting first lap, in which I gained a lot of positions. I overtook about four guys, and was on position 9 after the first lap. Of course my adrenaline was pumping after that, and going into turn 1, I was surprised at the early braking of Klag, and went inside… of course he didn’t expect this, closed the door, and we ended in the gravel. Luckily the cars weren’t damaged… but we had to start all over again.
In the first stint, I again overtook about four cars… I knew by then, I had to be lighter than the rest of the cars surrounding me. So after the first stint, my race became kind of lonely, except for the cars I came across during the pitstops.

All in all, it was a fun race to drive, I had a lot of action especially in the beginning, and I finished 2 races in one weekend. So I'm happy with that. My speed wasn’t optimum of course, but I didn’t expect to gain points, in such a competitive field, with nearly no practice."

Stephane Rouault (NL) 4th, WS Ace Race comments:
"I came into this race with no expectations. My practice time was limited, since I had just returned from holidays, and Pedro asked me if I wanted to do this ACE race, in order to get some more practice. I had time to do that, so I did.

I was still improving a lot in the practice session, and ended up pretty high. I could immediately see that the ACE field was heavily packed, and that the competition would be hard. In the first qualifying session, I drove the 4th time, I think. So I was happy with that, at least I’d go through to the second session. In that session I knew I was pretty light, because I was on a 3 stopper, and I managed to get 2nd position, which I had not suspected obviously, so I was pleased.

Then in the race, things were hard. After only a few laps, my tires went bad, so I couldn’t really reach the good times. I struggled throughout the race with this problem, and because of this, and a few mistakes I made, I ended up 4th in the race, just outside the podium. Nevertheless, this race proved itself useful, and provided me with a lot of info for WC. Great win for Fred, who had a great strategy, and thanks for his tips on tyre preservation."

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