Italian driver Ignazio D’Agosto got the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup season off to a great start for Manor MP Motorsport at Monza in Italy over the weekend, 11th/12th April, after racing to a richly deserved second place in round one – his first race with the Anglo-Dutch team.
Beginning Saturday’s encounter from the third row of the grid, the 20-year-old produced a superb performance to finish on the podium but hopes of a repeat in round two on Sunday were dashed after he was hit by another car and sustained suspension damage which led to retirement.
Team-mates Dennis Olsen and Lasse Sorensen both delivered consistently strong performances in the races, with the second encounter the better of the two for each of them – Olsen finishing in the top six with Sorensen just 0.8 seconds behind in seventh.
“It’s great to start our racing year with a podium”, said Manor MP Motorsport’s Sarah Shaw, “Ignazio did a really good job in the first race and was just very unfortunate in Sunday’s race. Dennis and Lasse had a lot of work to do after qualifying, but they both showed strong pace and it’s been great preparation for the first round of Eurocup [Formula Renault 2.0] in a couple of weeks.”
D’Agosto started the weekend well with the fifth fastest time in the first qualifying session, although Olsen and Sorensen weren’t able to benefit from the all-important Monza slipstream and so ended the run with the 16th and 19th best times respectively.
After an aborted initial start, due to the pole-qualifier stalling, when round one got underway D’Agosto quickly moved into the top four and then broke into the podium placings on lap five. With just a couple of laps to go, Kevin Jorg suffered a puncture and D’Agosto gladly seized second place.
Olsen and Sorensen made very good progress, the former moving into the top 12 on lap one and then gradually picking off positions to finish in seventh. Sorensen, meanwhile, impressed on his Formula Renault 2.0 race debut by climbing through to a top 12 finish.
Manor MP Motorsport’s next track activity will come with the opening two rounds of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season on 26th/27th April at Motorland Aragon in Spain. Before then, the MP Motorsport GP2 Series team will be in action in Bahrain for the first two races of its season this coming weekend, 18th/19th April, as support to the FIA Formula One World Championship.
Provisional Formula Renault 2.0 NEC Driver Standings (after Rd2):5th Dennis Olsen, 29pts; 7th Ignazio D’Agosto, 24pts; 8th Lasse Sorensen, 23pts
Provisional Formula Renault 2.0 NEC Team Standings (after Rd2):4th Manor MP Motorsport, 39pts
