Race Weekend - Milan GP ERS Season 1 

Predator Racing Group Blog

                                                        By Bob Power

Thursday

Race Three is here! Milan is the track this time and just like Isai Nolde promised we have not one but two brand new engines to try out. the first engine we have is a in house built motor at (35) and Sofi Sevilla has that one. The other is a outsource motor pushing (60) and Ines Santa Ana has that one.

We also have Sponsor Jander Mole Media with us here this weekend, so we really need a good showing for them.
  
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Friday - Practice 

Afternoon practice our goal was to break in the new motors and to fix any problems that had arrived. We got some good notes on soft tires but only manage 17th with Sevilla and 18th with Santa Ana. 

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Race Day

As the rules states reversed driver points position grid Santa Ana will start 3rd and Sevilla will start 4th.

It turned out to be a beautiful day for racing with an average temp of 66 degrees. The new motors have been broken in and where just about to take the green.

 

At the start, Santa Ana and Sevilla have a hard fought battle for 3rd. This wound up as a heated battle back and forth for 3 laps intill Santa Ana got major loose and fell to 10th.

 

Sergio Valdes ending up losing his motor going down the back stretch at the start of lap 5. The GMA was slow to throw the caution and Tanvir Jha got into his oil trail and crashed hard into the wall. Yellows out!

 

Sevilla was just passed pit lane when the yellow came out, but Santa Ana made it in and she wound up last on the grid for making hole sale changes to her car. Then it was Sevilla turn to pit and the crew realized they put the rear tires up front but caught it in time before she went back out, but would end up next to Santa Ana coming to the green.

 

The green flag was back out and Vaananen leads and got a big jump on the field till the next round of green flag stops.

 

lap 17 saw the last stops as Sevilla climbed to 12th and Santa Ana 15th

 

The Checkered flew on lap 21 as Beauchamp took the win, Arbeloa 2nd, and Antonov 3rd. We ended up clawing are way up to 9th with Sevilla but Santa Ana stayed in 15th

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Race run down

It was an ok day for us, the early yellow hurt us but manage to salvage a decent finish. We got some good notes with the new engines and look forward to Tondela next.

The GMA was harsh this week with inspections and handed down some hefty penalty's to teams.

ZRT Autosport - Driver Aurelie Dambele lost 2 spots - unapproved wing adjustments
ZRT Autosport - Driver Sergio Valdes lost 4 spots - unapproved engine 
Octane Racing - Driver Luigi Marchetta lost 2 spots - unapproved brakes  
Silva Racing - Driver Eduardo Melo lost 6 spots - unapproved engine and gearbox 

After the penalty's Sevilla moved up the 7th over all, but Santa Ana stayed at 15th.