The last World Series By Renault event at Motorland Aragon is being held this weekend. Jaime Alguersuari will battle tomorrow for the championship’s second final position. The Repsol racer, who had brake problems from the start, finished in eighth place in today’s trials in which champion Bertrand Baguette achieved victory. Alguersuari will be one of the prime contenders in tomorrow’s last and exciting finale race between the five remaining racers competing for the second final position.
Launched this past September, The Motorland Aragon Circuit, a 5,344-meter track designed by Herman Tilke, hosted its first international championship today with the World Series By Renault. Jaime Alguersuari qualified fifth in this morning’s Superpole, a position that has allowed him to begin in fourth position in today’s race, thanks to the inverted starting grid of the eight leading qualifications. When the red lights went off, the Repsol racer did not get off to a good start and lost two positions at the end of the first lap. Six laps later, Alguersuari overcame Italian racer Federico Leo and during the following six laps succeeded in reaching fifth position.
However, his single-seater was difficult to control due to brake problems and the Repsol racer lost fifth position in the thirteenth lap, sixth position four laps later, and finally seventh position six laps from the end. Finally, he ended up in eighth position at the flag point, a result that allowed him to gain three points more in racer qualifications and keep his possibilities open in the battle for runner up position.
Just like Alguersuari, four other racers are contending for the runner up position.
Charles Pic and James Walker, who were qualified ahead of him in the championship and have not been ranked in today’s race and Fairuz Fauzy and Oliver Turvey who were following him in the general qualification and today are ahead. There are now eight points separating the five racers: Charles Pic is in second place with 94 points, Alguersuari in third with 88, Oliver Turvey in fourth with 87 points and James Walker and Fairuz Fauzy share fifth place with 86 points achieved. Tomorrow Alguersuari will break away from fifth place, heading up the third row, and whether he achieves a good start tomorrow will be the determining factor in his possible achievement in one of the positions of pride in his first year competing in the World Series.
Jaime Alguersuari, 8th with 25.319 sec. >> Audio
“We’ve taken a step forward this morning compared with yesterday so I am happy about that. But we had brake problems during the race and I wasn’t able to maintain my position. I could barely brake in the entrance of the curves. Taking this into account, I think that I drove a good race but tomorrow we’ve got to finish in one of the five best.”
