PODIUMS AND POINTS FOR KENNOL IN FIA GP2

After 8 races in this 2013 FIA GP2 Championship, Racing Engineering and KENNOL are still on the podiums of the Drivers and Teams Championships. Fabio LEIMER is back from his black series at Barcelona and Monaco, where technical issues and accidents caused by others forced him to abandon, while Julian LEAL is following his leader now, and even reached a second place podium at Spa-Francorchamps 2 days ago!

We should see Julian score more points soon for my team.

Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón, R.E. President

I will attack during the 2nd half of this 2013 GP2 season. The aim: to close the gap to Coletti and win the title!

Fabio LEIMER

▌ HALF-WAY SEASON AND PODIUMS ON THE 2 CHAMPIONSHIPS!

An excellent race weekend for Racing Engineering at mythical Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix, with both drivers scoring points, and Julián LEAL podiuming for the first time in his GP2 career! In the Drivers’ Championship, LEIMER is still 3rd but now just 1 point behind NASR and 7 points behind the leader, COLETTI. Racing Engineering are up to 3rd in the Team Championship.

Julián LEAL: “Before anything I would like to thank my team for the good work this weekend. I started from 3rd position in race 2 and a good start was crucial. I managed to have a good one and was in second place after the first corner. After that I had a really good pace during the entire race and towards the end I was closing in on Calado.
But when I pushed to reduce the gap, my tyres were suffering more and I was therefore controlling the pace during the closing laps to not risk second position.
I am very happy with the result achieved. We worked hard to get here and the objective is to become better in qualifying to achieve even better results.”

▌ PERFORMANCE OVERCOMES BAD LUCK

Racing Engineering will be looking to continue their recent run of good results that has seen the Spanish team score two third and two fourth places in the previous two rounds at the Nürburgring and Hungaroring, with Fabio LEIMER who has been very fast in recent races. Julián LEAL’s improved form in recent races that saw the young Colombian set the fastest lap in the Nürburgring Feature Race, means that he must now be considered as a potential podium finisher on all tracks. He proved it last week-end at SPA!

And this dynamic within the team is a good thing. Indeed, both drivers come back from a very bad period, which saw them scoring no points for 5 races! Mostly due to race incidents, caused by opponents, the 2 GP2 drivers had to be patient in these situations.

Silverstone was better for the team and KENNOL

Fabio LEIMER has been fast at all the races so far, winning the Feature Races at Sepang and Bahrain and Julián LEAL’s speed in qualifying at Monaco and Hungaroring shows that the young Colombian is a serious threat to the other drivers, as soon as he can keep the same pace all along the week-end. The Racing Engineering team have always been quick at Silverstone circuit and last year Fabio started the Feature Race from pole position. And Silverstone GP proved to be a weekend of mixed fortunes… Although LEIMER and LEAL took 4th places in the Feature and Sprint races respectively, the team were disappointed not to come away with some podium finishes given the race pace shown by both men. However the Racing Engineering team has been very competitive at each of the preceding five race weekends and the whole team is looking forward to the challenges of the second part of the season.

Drivers and team confirmed their renewed performance by winning good points at Nürburgring GP.
Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director: “Both races in Germany showed some interesting strategies and on-track action, mostly related to the use and management of the tyres and set-up options for the Dallara GP2 single-seaters. We finished fourth on Saturday and third on the podium on Sunday with Fabio which is reasonably good. Julian could have done much better in Race 1 but some mistakes prevented him from showing his pace and the potential of the car. He turned this around though for race 2, where he finished 12th after starting from 22nd position on the grid.”

▌ A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR THE ONE WHO WINS

Such has been the closeness of the racing this year and a good result next GP2 weekend for Fabio LEIMER could see the Racing Engineering driver making substantial gains in his battle for the 2013 Championship. And potentially arouse the interest of Formula 1 teams looking for the future of the drivers world elite…

Fabio LEIMER [at SPA-Francorchamps]: «In the end, I am satisfied with P5 and also as I made up points again in the championship. Now it’s a really close battle for the title and I think the last three events will be very interesting.”

The Spanish team now return to their Sanlúcar de Barrameda base to prepare for the next round of the 2013 GP2 series at Monza in two weeks’ time. Details about the track and records on GP2 Series website.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy this exclusive video review of the main events of the first 8 races of the 2013 GP2 Championship, alongside KENNOL and Racing Engineering Team: