"I had the best race of my life! The set-up of the car was good and Icould have finished in the top four, if it would not have started torain", says the man of the race in Brno - Tuka Rocha.
His team mate Sven Heidfeld is a little bit disappointed: "I had a verygood start, but then I had understeer and from that time on it was notpossible to fight for a better position anymore. I am sure, that I couldhave finished the race on fifth place. Of course I am not happy, but tothink about the fact, that we hadn't had the possibility to test the carbefore and that this was our first race, I am satisfied with the result."
Zele-Racing team principal Michael Zele: "Sven's and Tuka's performancewas impressive. To start from the 17th and last position and finish insixth, is just great!"
Race report:The 21-year-old Brasilian Tuka Rocha is the man who ensured an extremelyexciting first race of the Superfund-Euro-3000-Championship. He and histeam mate, the 26-year-old German Sven Heidfeld were the duo to whom theviewers and the cameras of the German TV station DSF dedicated their majorattention.
Tuka Rocha overtook five opponents on the first lap and competesin position 12. Sven Heidfeld from the fourth row of the starting grid gained two positions and pushed forward to ninth place. During the fourth lap, Graves retired after a spin off.
Khodair followed in the seventh lap and the tension in the field mounted. Lauda attacked Sven Heidfeld from lap to lap. Meanwhile Tuka Rocha overtook the Italian Ippoliti and showed up behind his team mate Sven Heidfeld, who gave up his sixth position in the fight with Lauda - now the team mates were fighting against each other.
Tuka showed his potential setting 1'53.597 the fastest lap time (Info:fastest lap time of the race: Del Monte with 1'51.195) and leaves Svenbehind. Six laps before the end the race Tuka overtakes Lauda. At thepassing manoeuvre the race cars were in contact and Lauda had to retire with a damaged right front tyre.
Tuka was in the points! With his sixth place Tuka Rocha scored one point for the Austrian based Zele-Racing team.Facts about the Qualifying:
