Race Reports

Nurburgring 20/07/2007

Nurburgring Qualifying

Both Super Nova cars successfully qualified in the top ten this afternoon in Germany, for tomorrows sixth round in the 2007 GP2 championship.

After thunderous showers washed out the majority of free practice this morning, the teams went out again at 4pm having reworked their set ups for what would be much drier, brighter conditions, for the 30 minute qualifying session.

British driver Mike Conway established the pace around the demanding Nurburgring circuit on his opening laps, just behind German iSport driver Timo Glock, who was obviously at home on this track. Luca Filippi just 0.1seconds off his team-mate looked ready to challenge for a front row qualifying position, when unfortunately his car developed a fuel pump problem, and thus limiting his run out to just 6 laps.

Mike’s strived to improve on his early 1:41.964 lap time, getting frustratingly close, yet as more drivers came through, Mike qualified a decent 9th place for tomorrows Feature race.

Team Principal David Sears “In the first half of the official qualifying session it looked like both Super Nova drivers would be lining up on the second row on the grid in 3rd & 4th places.  Before he could use his last set of new tyres Luca Filippi’s car obtained a problem, and this could not be fixed in time and therefore Luca slipped to 10th on the grid. Mike Conway made a small adjustment and unfortunately didn’t go any quicker, so qualifies 9th, one place ahead of Filippi.

The whole team are looking forward to an exciting race tomorrow, with both drivers capable of scoring some much needed points.”

Mike Conway “It was ok for me, except the second set of tyres were much slower, so in the last half we just couldn’t find the pace to improve. However I am confident that tomorrow we can move up and have a good race….”

Luca said of this afternoons qualifying “It was good to begin with, but unfortunately but we had a problem. Initially though the car had good balance, so I’m happy with that,  & I think we will be able to go quicker & gain positions tomorrow.”