| Andreas Zuber arrived in Silverstone in excellent shape from Croatia after a few days of serious fitness training in the heat. Zuber was right to feel confident after the FMSI team's results in Monaco and today he added a point to his first eight of the season bringing his tally to nine after a race that he finished in eighth position. As a result, Andreas will start race 2 tomorrow from pole as the grid is reversed for the top eight finishers. Starting from P14, Andreas finished the feature race in eighth. Andreas'
memories from Silverstone are still vivid following his win from pole in the 2007 feature race. It was a perfect race where Andreas was able to show his potential and it also makes Silverstone his favourite track. In the first Friday morning free practice session, on the 5.141 km long track, Andreas Zuber, one of 4 drivers to have qualified in the top 6 at every race this year (with Grosjean, Petrov and Hulkenberg) prepared for the 36-lap race 1 and set the second fastest lap with 1.27.025. He went on to take fourteenth in a tough qualifying session. In race 1 Andreas took a strong start and ended up eighth at the chequered flag after a trouble-free pit stop on lap 13. Andreas said, "The half hour of qualifying here is very tough. I focused and I knew that there was only one way to go and needed to take care of the tyres for the one fast lap. But there was traffic and from the beginning of the qualifying session and it was difficult to get into a rhythm. I clocked
1.27.106 and could not improve because of traffic, my time slower than that in second practice, which is further than I would like from pole. What an unexpected result." "I had a good start in race 1 and was up to ninth at the end of the first lap. Even if I know that the race is long and the Silverstone track a difficult challenge, I was a bit relieved. My team-mate Luiz Razia was amongst the first on an early pit strategy. I was fighting with Guido Van der Garde. I knew I had to be careful but I passed him and then I ranked 7th on lap 13 which with the team we chose for our pit stop and I rejoined in P14. I continued to make progress and was eighth by lap 21. Five laps before the end of the race I had to be careful as my tyres were destroyed and I did not want to go off. I had to ease one position and finished eighth. This gives me one point and means I will start tomorrow's race two from pole. Let's see how it goes. " |
