If Saturday was an exciting and successful day for Racing Engineering the best was yet to come as everything worked perfectly for the team yesterday as both drivers drove superbly to finish in the top five with Javier Villa performing faultlessly on his way to second place.
The Racing Engineering cars lined up one and two on the grid as F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone offered his good wishes to pole sitter Javier but the tension soon mounted as the start was aborted when Maldonado and Garcia stalled.
After a second warm up lap the race got under way with Javier making a brilliant start although Sergio Jimenez bogged down slightly and dropped to 6th.
Three cars spun out at the first corner but were quickly moved and at the end of lap one it was Villa in the lead from Di Grassi. Javier quickly pulled a few seconds ahead but on lap 3 Di Grassi was demoted by the flying Glock who began to close in on the Racing Engineering car.
Meanwhile Sergio was going well and quickly moved up to fifth place but all the cars at the front of the field were very close together. Lap 7 saw Glock slipstream past Javier who, wisely, decided to not put up a fight but to preserve his tyres and Glock began to pull away as Javier concentrated on consolidating his second place.
By lap 12 Javier had a lead of nearly two seconds over third placed Di Grassi with Saturday’s winner Senna a few seconds further back.
Lap 15 saw Di Grassi and Senna began to close the gap to Javier by a tenth or two a lap but Javier was keeping his cool and driving with great maturity. With 5 laps to go Senna had closed up on Di Grassi and Javier was beginning to slide as his tyres went off but as Di Grassi and Senna squabbled over third Javier concentrated in making no mistakes and kept the other two at bay by just under a second.
Suddenly it was all over and a delighted Javier crossed the line in second punching the air at such an incredible result in front of so many of his fans. To make the day even better for Racing Engineering Sergio finished 5th after a rather lonely drive although he had to fight off Pantano in the closing laps but like Villa he drove a perfect race.
Alfonso D'Orleans (team principal):
Javier was fantastic today, our calculations told us Glock would be very quick and Javi behaved like a gentleman when he was overtaken and this helped him in his fight with Di Grassi and Senna. Javi showed such a strong mental stability for a 19 year old and he drove brilliantly. Sergio also did a marvellous job for the team with his great drive to fifth. I really can’t find the words for this super result, the mechanics, the engineers, the truckies, everybody did a wonderful job.
It’s Monaco next and we want to continue in the same way but Monaco is the land of the roulette wheel so anything can happen!
Javier Villa (driver car 14): I made a great start and pulled out a couple of seconds but Glock was just so quick I couldn’t fight him. The last 18 laps were really nice, the car was really good and I was able to keep ahead of Di Grassi and Senna. This is such a great result for me after having to start 26th yesterday; the team did a fantastic job and it was wonderful to do so well in front of all the fans that were supporting me.
Sergio Jimenez (driver car 15): I didn’t get away well at the start and dropped to 6th but I was soon able to recover a position to 5th. I had some changes made to the car overnight but they didn’t work as I had hoped so I just concentrated on finishing well. Javi drove a great race and the Team have done a really good job for me. I hope we will be able to get another good result at the next race.
