At the end of the first lap he was over a second ahead of the chasing group and his second lap was even a tenth faster than yesterday`s fastest lap. The third lap saw his lead increase up to 3.6 seconds over the nearest driver, Adrian Zaugg.
The rest of the drivers did not put any pressure on the Spaniard at any time and he continued to constantly increase his lead. The drivers immediately following him, Zaugg and Hirate, touched on the first curve and this left Zaugg out of the race and Hirate lost time. The Spanish Repsol driver only had one fright, one lap from the end his Racing Engineering car missed the chicane although he had such a big lead that the few seconds he lost were not significant.
Ernesto Viso continued his learning process in the car and he concentrated on getting back his rhythm in GP2. The Repsol driver started well, and was ninth on the first few laps. Soon he was in the middle of a dogfight with Rodriguez and Pantano, and in spite of not being able to keep up with the Italian he managed to overtake the Spaniard and cross the finishing line 2 seconds ahead of him in a satisfactory 8th position.
Javier Villa:
“On the grid I was a little uptight Because we had some problems yesterday but I managed to find a fast start and get an advantage on the first few laps. We found a good pace and even when Zaugg speeded up I was able to continue increasing my lead. He carried on trying to catch me the whole race and that is why I missed the final chicane, opting to continue in a straight line and taking my foot off on the last lap so that I did not have any problems to win the race.”
Ernesto Viso:
“This race was a little monotonous. We continue to improve and we have to work to do more in this direction. I think that we now have a good base for the next few races. Today the car went better, without the braking and accelerator problems that we had yesterday and we only had a little oversteer.”
Race 1
The Racing Engineering team overcame the problems it had in the session classification to get a good race result. The race began with a cloudy sky and with a forecast of rain at the end, something that in the end did not occur. In spite of there being a car stalled on the grid, both Javier Villa and Ernesto Viso managed to start well and their first laps went by without any problems, avoiding all the incidents that occurred.
The team chose to call Javier Villa in to the pits on lap two and a fast turn around allowed him to return in 18th position. Villa then started to drive really fast so as to climb up the classification but without too much wear on the tyres. Progress was soon seen and with the positions he gained on the track combined with pit stops for some of his rivals, on lap 13 he was 11th. On lap 15 Villa was in 10th place and he began to fight with his ex team mate, Adam Carroll, and with Bruno Senna. On lap 18 Carroll braked too hard on the first curve and when Senna tried to overtake the two cars collided. Carroll was out of the race and Senna fell back a few positions, Javi took advantage of this to move up to 8th.
Javier Villa spent the rest of the race keeping Lapierre at bay and getting closer and closer to Zaugg, and drove practically the whole race with the same set of tyres. In the end he was 8th and so in pole position for tomorrow`s race.
For Ernesto Viso this was a race with fewer possibilities as he still had to do some kilometres in the Racing Engineering car after his accident three weeks ago at Magny Cours. Viso started well getting into 12th place and rising to 8th on lap 10 as the other cars made their pit stops. The Repsol driver made one on lap 12 and rejoined the race in 15th position.
On lap 21 Viso had moved up one position and was fighting hard with Soucek in front of him and Negrao just behind him. The fight went on for two laps until the Repsol driver missed a chicane and overtook Soucek. When Ernesto Viso gave way sportingly to Soucek, he could not avoid Negrao taking advantage at the same time and he also overtook him. In the end he overtook Soucek and spent the rest of the race fighting with Petrov, Rodríguez and Negrao, whilst Yamamoto closed in on them from behind. On the last few laps Dallara, a Repsol driver, lost 6th gear and Viso finished 12th.
Javier Villa:
“The race went very well: I pushed really strongly from early on and as the race progressed it became more and more difficult to control the car as well as I would have liked. Tomorrow I will start in pole position and the first lap will be very important, I need to get a good start and then get a good pace and drive as fast as I can.”
Ernesto Viso:
“This was a tough race, I overtook one or two cars at the beginning but I soon started to have difficulties as the brake and clutch pedal were not right, ‘too long’. The balance on the car was not good, with understeer when entering curves and oversteer coming out, but I went as fast as I could and we are still developing the car. In the end I lost 6th gear and that meant I fell back in the classification.”
