Budapest, Hungary – July 12, 2007. After a seven
week break Formula World Series by Renault 3.5 roars back
into life at the Hungaroring this coming weekend and Cram
Competition’s Fairuz Fauzy can’t wait to get
back in the cockpit.
The tortuous, twisty circuit on the outskirts of Hungary’s
capital city Budapest will be the first time that Formula
Renault 3.5 machines have visited the Hungaroring, so while
it will be a challenge for the teams to find the ultimate
set-up, Fairuz has an advantage because of his prior visit
to the track in GP2 last season.
With the cancellation of June’s scheduled trip to
Istanbul, the World Series outfits have enjoyed an early
summer vacation. But it’s back to business on Thursday
morning as the first of two 120 minute sessions commence
on the 2.7-mile track.
Since the previous round at Monaco in May, Fairuz has
spent just a single day in the car where he completed a
shakedown run at the Welsh circuit of Pembrey to ensure
his Cram Dallara chassis was in good working order ahead
of this weekend. “It’s felt like a winter break
and with so much time out of the cockpit, it’s easy
to get a bit rusty, so it was important to get back to
grips with the car ahead of coming to Hungary,” said
the 24-year-old.
He added: “This is a good chance to refocus and
reset all of the problems we’ve had so far this year.
It feels as if we’ve got a second chance and we can
start the season again. I’m genuinely very excited
to get back racing again – it’s been a long
time since Monaco.”
One of the concerns in Hungary is that the twisty F1 circuit
is notoriously dusty off line, but Fairuz doesn’t
expect too many problems. “I think it’s different
to GP2 when the track suffers because of all the F1 rubber
going down on the surface. We’ll see, but I don’t
think it will be a problem for World Series. The other
great thing about this weekend is the amount of track time
we have – it’ll be really crucial to developing
the car over the weekend. The priority will be to score
as many points as possible, we need a bit of a lift and
this should be a good chance to achieve that.”
The Hungaroring weekend will have two practice sessions
on Thursday, plus another two on Friday (of 45 minutes)
before qualifying on Saturday. The two races are split
between Saturday and Sunday.
In the past week, Fairuz has been celebrating the birth
of his son, Feroz Fezril who was born on the morning of
Monday, July 9 at Northampton hospital. “Everything
went extremely well, there were no problems – I was
just glad that he was born last weekend and not this, so
I wasn’t racing!”
| 