News

12 Oct 09

Difficult weekend for Tambay at Dijon

Adrien Tambay was hoping to score some points on home soil last weekend, during the 17^th and 18^th rounds of the F3 Euro Series at Dijon-Prenois, but despite the young Frenchman’s grit and determination, his tally remained unchanged.

In free practice, Tambay focused on car set-up but changing track conditions rendered lap times somewhat irrelevant. “Things didn’t go too bad in qualifying,” said the ART driver. “I could have been in the top 5 given how close the lap times of the first ten were, and without encountering traffic, but 9^th position was still satisfying.”

On Saturday, Tambay immediately moved up a few spots at the start, just before the initiation of a safety car period. “On the restart, everything went fine and I was right behind Caldarelli, who was 6^th. I was hoping to pass him at the end of the long straight but just couldn’t gain on him, while Mehri, who was right behind me, pulled out of my tow.” Tambay attempted to defend his position on the outside of the corner, but scrubbing off speed, several cars managed to catch up. “My straight line speed was just lousy.. And that enabled several drivers to overtake me, which sent me down to 10th place. I then tangled with Coletti who didn’t provide me with any room to maneuver… “

After retiring in race 1, Adrien didn’t have much to lose in Sunday’s race, so the Gravity driver just put his head down and did his best. “I passed a lot of cars early on but it wasn’t easy as we had lightened up the aerodynamic load on the car in order to improve straight line speed, and that was done to the detriment of the car’s overall balance, generating some heavy understeer. So 10^th place was the best we could get. Leaving the race without securing a good result was once again frustrating, but I’ve got to move on and keep working hard. We evidently have to be a little more reactive next time with regard to our set-up, as the car’s aero problems really cost me a lot. I probably would have been considerably faster on Saturday if we had run the low downforce setting. That said, as a team, we win and we lose together… So I’m now looking forward to Hockenheim next week for the last race of the season and where I will draw on all the experience I collected this year to finish on the best possible note.”