With almost no time to recover from the highs and lows that Racing Engineering went through at the Magny Cours GP2 series weekend, it’s already time for the team to focus again on the next important date of its 2007 campaign.
From Friday the GP2 cars will be back in action, this time the scene will be the historic track of Silverstone, the venue of the British F1 Grand Prix.
Racing Engineering arrives at the classic Northamptonshire circuit with last Sunday’s magnificent victory of its driver Javier Villa still being news in the international press. Villa’s victory was based on a great recovery race on Saturday from the back of the pack to seventh which put him in the front row for Sunday’s race.
It was a further demonstration of the young Spaniard’s talent, something that led Racing Engineering and its main sponsors, Repsol and Telefónica, to support him and to begin last year a project that is giving better and better results as time goes by.
The podium finish at Barcelona, the victory in France and the continuous display of speed and maturity shown by Villa throughout the season are making him one of the drivers to keep an eye on. He is already sixth overall in the series standings, the same place that is occupied by Racing Engineering in the team table. Villa’s triumph was also the third for Racing Engineering in the GP2 series after the two wins scored with Neel Jani in the 2005 season.
At Silverstone Javier’s number 14 Dallara will be closely followed by the knowledgeable British crowd and in the other car, the number 15, they will see yet another young charger, the Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque, who has already worked with Racing Engineering in the Spanish F3 series where he was Villa’s team-mate.
This will make for an ideal coordination between the drivers and the team, allowing Filipe, the 2006 Formula Renault Europe champion, to fully focus on maximising this great opportunity to drive one of the Racing Engineering’s GP2 cars. Filipe will stand in at Silverstone for Ernesto Viso as the Venezuelan driver has not yet received the all clear from the doctors following his accident last Saturday at Magny Cours.
This unfortunate incident showed up the professionalism and the great work ethic of the whole Racing Engineering technical staff as they were able to build a totally new car despite the pressure of such a short gap between the French and British races.
The British race weekend, the fifth of the 2007 season, should mean for Racing Engineering a further step up in its positive development since the start of the season.
The fast and very technical Silverstone track requires some difficult setup work, especially at the aerodynamic level to reach the necessary compromise between maximum speed and maximum downforce required to be as quick as possible at critical corners such as Copse, Becketts or Stowe, without losing efficiency in the final and very twisty complex. The track, built around a former WWII airfield, is one of those where all drivers would like to shine. Both Racing Engineering drivers are no exception to this and they are already looking forward to being at the wheel of their Dallaras for the first free practice session due on Friday morning.
