Round 5 of the World Series by Renault Championship in Nürburg, Germany, proved to be a challenging weekend for American driver Alexander Rossi who, after strong performances in both incident filled qualifying sessions, ended the weekend in 6th place in the Championship standings.
Rossi qualified strongly on Saturday morning, resulting in a front row position on the grid in P2, only 0.3 seconds off pole, for the first race of the weekend. On Saturday afternoon the race began on a damp track and so, with no predicted rain, the field started the race on slick tyres. Rossi’s Fortec Motorsports car was forced out wide as the pack jostled for position in the short run down to turn 1. He was running in P3 on the approach to Veedol chicane, where standing water made for treacherous driving conditions which had forced the field to close up as the race leader ran wide. Vergne dived up the inside of Rossi entering the final corner of lap one and when exiting Coca-Cola corner, Vergne made contact and spun Rossi. As a result, both were immediate retirements.
For Sunday’s Race two, Rossi lined up in seventh on the grid after an extremely wet, flag-filled second qualifying session. Rossi made a good start to race two, taking the outside line into turn 1. However, in the battle for position at turn 3, he was clipped in the rear causing a puncture and suspected damage to his suspension. Calling back to the pits, Rossi came in for a tyre change and damage assessment. His Fortec team decided to retire him from competing further as the potential for suspension failure during the race was too great.
Alexander Rossi, “We came into this weekend with the sole aim of bringing top points home, and we had great pace all weekend. It is extremely frustrating and disappointing to come away with nothing following contact from behind in both races which took me out of the running. But that is motor racing, and I now have to look forward to next week’s training and focus on preparations for the next round in Hungary in a couple of weeks time.”
Jamie Dye, Team Manager, Fortec Motorsport, “It is very disappointing for the team and Alexander to come away from this weekend with no points. He qualified extremely well yesterday, starting in P2 for race one, and with the second session interrupted several times this morning due to the tricky wet conditions, Alexander did the best he could with the time he had on track to achieve P7 for the start of race 2. Once again he was taken out of the race, this time with suspected terminal suspension damage, and this was far from ideal for our championship title chase. The nearest teams around us, in terms of performance, scored highly this weekend, and so we have to get back on it in Hungary if we are to regain lost ground from the last three races.”
Round #6 of World Series by Renault is in Hungary on 2nd - 3rd July. Alexander Rossi currently remains on 73 points and is in sixth place in the series, 59 points behind current Championship leader.
