Andreas Zuber and Luiz Razia took to the track this weekend for Fisichella Motor Sport International at the Silverstone circuit in the UK for round four of the 2009 GP2 Series.
The Italian squad returned to successful ways as Zuber picked up a podium in Sunday's sprint race, finishing in second place.
Silverstone is a circuit much loved by drivers due to its high-speed, fast flowing nature. The first sector is particularly quick, with drivers finding a real challenge. Free practice and qualifying took place on Friday, with the 36-lap feature race at 3pm on Saturday and the 24-lap sprint on Sunday morning at 9.30am.
Andreas Zuber: Andreas had a strong start to the weekend, finishing second fastest in practice, with a quickest lap was 1:27.025. Unfortunately he had problems with traffic in qualifying, which made it difficult to seize his full potential and set a time of 1:27.106, to line up 16th on the grid for the feature. In Saturday's race he made an excellent start and raced strongly, eventually crossing the line in 8th, picking up a point and pole position for Sunday's race.
At the start of the sprint he was jumped by Pastor Maldonado, but maintained a strong second position until the chequered flag, stepping onto the podium once again for FMSI. Luiz Razia: Luiz finished 22nd in Friday's practice session, setting a fastest time of 1:29.218 and completed a total of 13 laps of testing. Razia also suffered from traffic on his qualifying runs, and had to settle for starting 23rd for the feature after recording a lap of 1.28.789. He had a steady feature race, moving up three positions to finish in 20th. Starting from the tenth row in the sprint, he was progressing well until he was hit on the straight by Dani Clos, putting an end to his race. Round five (races nine and ten) of the 2009 GP2 Series will take place in three weeks (10-12 July) at the Nurburgring circuit in Germany.
Paolo Coloni, Team Principal, FMSI: "We are really pleased with today's podium result for Andi. We could say we were disappointed to lose the race as we started on pole, but Maldonado made a fantastic start. After that both drivers drove a very good race and pushed hard so we are pleased. I've been amazed at the performance of our car this weekend and am delighted with the strong form. We were unlucky with traffic in qualifying so we had to cope with that but we are getting better and stronger. I'm sad for what happened to Luiz today. It has not been a lucky weekend for him but he has shown he is progressing and I'm sure he will be there at the next race. It's all looking positive."
Saturday Race Result1. Alberto Valerio (Piquet GP)2. Lucas di Grassi (Fat Burner Racing Engineering)3. Nico Hulkenburg (ART Grand Prix)8. Andreas Zuber (FMSI)20. Luiz Razia (FMSI) Sunday Race Result1. Pastor Maldonado (ART Grand Prix2. Andreas Zuber (FMSI)3. Karun Chandhok (Ocean Racing Technology)DNF. Luiz Razia (FMSI)
