Sunday’s GP2 race at the Istanbul Park circuit wascharacterized by difficult and changing conditions. Yet, RacingEngineering’s Borja Garcia obtained another position in thepoints after achieving his first podium just the day before.For the fourth time this season, and what is even more important,four times during the last six races, Borja Garcia was able to finish in the points.
An outstanding performance kept in mind the adverseconditions on Sunday. With the cars lined up on the starting gridheavy rains set in and not only the tyres were changed from dry towet, but also set up adjustments were necessary. The Spaniard wasfast in the wet and was in a good position for the rest of the racewhen he came into the pits to pick up his set of dry tyres as the trackstarted drying up.
Borja proved that he has the speed. Being one of the fastest in the wet, Borja also held the fastest lap time in the race until the last lap. Finishing the race in the points again and given thestatistics of the last races make expectations high for the next roundat Monza as Borja seems to finally have overcome the bad luck hehad at the beginning of the season.
For Neel this weekend was much different. He looks back to aterrible weekend. Just like during the Saturday race another drivertook him out of the race. Neel had a very interesting first half of therace where he made up quite some positions. However, Neel’spossibilities were limited for Sunday’s sprint race as he had to startlast. For sure the Swiss will be back to his normal positions at thenext meeting in Monza being so far one of the most consistentdrivers in the points.
At the end of a great weekend in Turkey Borja Garcia said, “Duringthe first laps of the race things were a bit complicated. Not only was itvery slippery, but visibility was very low. Therefore I didn't want topush too much and the aim was to stay on the track. I am happybecause I was fast in the rain as well as in the dry. I held the fastestlap time until the closing stages. This was a good weekend and mycar was really fast. I am happy!”
Neel Jani concluded, ”Due to the changing weather conditions Idecided to start the race from the pits. Everything went well at thebeginning of the race and I made up positions. But when I reachedFauzy, it was difficult to get passed him. And in the end Pantanoovertook both of us. I was a bit cautious during the first lap after thetyre change, but then my lap times were good. When Monfardini triedto outbrake me on the wet side of the track and it is logical that thisdoesn't work. He hit me and my race was over. It wasn’t a goodweekend but we have to look ahead now”.
With Borja scoring points in both races Alfonso de Orleáns-Borbónsaid, “Borja had just another great race. He scored goodpoints this weekend and was one of the fastest drivers in the race.Calling him in one or two laps earlier might have maybe allowed aneven better result. But we are happy that he did so well and can'twait for Monza. All the team has done a perfect job this weekend andI want to thank them for their effort.
Race 2 Classification:
1. H. Kovalainen Arden International 43:48.5812. A. Carroll Super Nova International +7.9853. N. Rosberg ART Grand Prix +8.5564. S. Speed iSport International +9.3285. B. Garcia Racing Engineering +11.3416. N. Piquet Jr. Hitech Piquet Sports +18.3607. J. Lopez DAMS +21.6188. G. Pantano Super Nova International +24.0329. G. Bruni Coloni Motorsport +25.71810.H. Yoshimoto BCN Competicion +34.197
