Arthur Pic experienced a mixed weekend in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series round at Spa-Francorchamps as a strong run to fourth in Saturdays race was followed by a first-lap exit on Sunday.
The AV Formula driver matched the pace of the leaders around the legendary Belgian circuit in the first race, and only missed out on a podium when he was passed after a lengthy safety car period. Unfortunately, Pic's chances of adding more points to his tally on Sunday were thwarted when he was unable to avoid a collision in front of him.
Heavy fog delayed qualifying on Saturday morning and the drivers were left with just 20 minutes of running, but Pic was quickly on the pace and held provisional pole position with five minutes remaining thanks to a superb lap. He was displaced as the track became faster but managed to improve upon his own effort before the chequered flag and secure fourth on the grid.
At the beginning of the race the Frenchman made a good start to move into third. He then ran close behind Antonio Felix da Costa, matching the Red Bull junior drivers pace, until the safety car was deployed on lap seven following a crash further down the order. At the restart, a hard-charging Nigel Melker dived down the inside of Pic at La Source and demoted him to fourth.
In Sunday mornings qualifying the 21-year-old found himself caught out in an extremely close session. After struggling for grip from the tyres on a cooler track he could only manage 17th place, even though he was only one second shy of pole.
Unfortunately, any hope of a fight back into the points similar to those he produced at Monza earlier in the season were ended by a collision at the high-speed Raidillon corner. Unable to see a car that had crashed ahead of him until the last moment, Pic could not avoid making contact that ended his race.
Although he slips to seventh in the drivers standings as those around him all secured top-six finishes, Pic now lies just seven points adrift of fourth spot. He will be confident of overhauling that deficit during the next round at Moscow Raceway (June 22/23), where he claimed a dominant maiden victory in Formula Renault 3.5 last season.
Arthur Pic: Saturday was quite positive as we qualified fourth, particularly as we only used one set of new tyres while the others used two. I was third for most of the race until the safety car period. After the restart I was passed by Melker, but he was faster so I think he would have overtaken me anyway. I finished fourth and scored strong points for the championship, which was positive.
On Sunday morning we had trouble making the tyres work in qualifying. The weather was a bit cooler compared to Saturday and we just had no grip. In the race cars collided in front of me at Raidillon. One stopped straight ahead of me and I only saw it at the last minute, so couldnt avoid contact, but this is what can happen when you start further back.
It has not been a very positive weekend for us as the objective was to score big points on both Saturday and Sunday. We have five race weekends left and have only run seven races, so its not over yet. Many things can still happen, but we have used all our jokers.
"Moscow Raceway brings back good memories and it would be great to repeat what we did there last year. I will go and work with the team in Spain this week and after that I will return to Paris to work on the simulator and prepare for Moscow.
