Estoril, Portugal – October, 20 2007. Malaysian
Fairuz Fauzy will start the penultimate round of the World
Series Formula Renault 3.5 meeting from the fourth row
of the grid following this morning’s qualifying session.
The Cram Competition driver has been one of the major
pace setters over the two days of practice at the former
grand prix venue of Estoril, which Formula Renault 3.5
visits for the first time in two years. The 4.1km circuit
marks the first stage of a week long finale to the year,
after a terrific season of competitive racing. The final
round also takes place on the Iberian Peninsula in Barcelona
in a week’s time.
On Thursday morning, under a hot sun, Fairuz eclipsed
his rivals to record the quickest time in the first two
hour session at the challenging track. With half an hour
of the session remaining and on new tyres he recorded three
laps under 1m 28s to head the field after completing 41
laps in total. In the two hour afternoon session, it took
80 minutes before anybody bettered Fairuz’s best
lap of 1m 27.625s (172kph) from the morning. The 24-years-old
was happy with the set-up of his Cram machine and only
completed 22 laps in the afternoon.
“It's been a good start for the weekend,” said
Fairuz. “We have mainly been focusing in putting
in some long runs to simulate how the car will handle during
the race and the potential is there. Because the circuit
has a combination of high-speed, medium-speed and low-speed
corners, we’ve been working hard with the team to
try and achieve the ultimate set-up.”
In Friday’s two 55 minutes practice sessions, Fairuz
was again on the pace, comfortable with the balance of
the car and simulating his race programme. The early morning
session saw temperatures much lower than the previous day
and most pilots set their quickest time of the event so
far in this session. With 11 laps under his belt Fairuz
was just +0.080s off Alvaro Barba’s quickest time,
with a 1m 25.935s lap and he remained the second fastest
runner in the afternoon 55 minute period behind Ben Hanley.
As ever, qualifying was split into two sessions, Group
A and B, and Fairuz was in A which was the second group
to have 20 minutes of track time on Saturday morning to
set the starting grid. And his was the quickest group,
local man Alvaro Parente scored a home pole position, with
Fairuz just +0.419s seconds behind him in fourth place.
With times from both groups added together it ensures Fairuz
starts on the fourth row in this afternoon’s opening
race. The first race starts at 1340 on Saturday afternoon
(local time), while race two is tomorrow at 1300.
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