Dubai, UAE – April 12 2008. Fairuz Fauzy is aiming
for a resounding finish to the inaugural GP2 Asia Series,
which holds its final race in Dubai tomorrow. Currently
sitting joint fourth in the championship, the Malaysian
will be battling for points in what has been a terrific
season for the Super Nova driver.
Before last weekend’s race in Bahrain, Fairuz had
finished every race in the points (including a number of
podiums!) and will aim to achieve that target again in
the Sprint Race in Dubai on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately,
Fairuz just failed to pick up any points in the Feature
Race today after he was beset with problems in practice.
“It's been a very tough weekend as I've had a problem
with my brakes, which were a bit spongy in practice,” reveals
Fairuz. “I had a problem with them after I went off
in Bahrain and then we changed them in the morning practice
because there was a problem with the callipers.”
He continued: “After we made the changes, the car
wasn't quite to my liking and then in the first sector
of the lap in particular I was struggling. I was losing
about 0.8 seconds despite all the changes we were making."
That drama consigned the Malaysian to 15th overall in
the session and ultimately 19th on the grid for qualifying,
although he was still quicker than the sister Super Nova
machine and team-mate Christian Bakkerud.
But after the red lights went out at the penultimate GP2
Asia Series race at Dubai, Fairuz discovered his car was
much more to his liking and he made rapid progress through
the field. His quickest lap of the race was just 0.3 seconds
off the fastest overall, set by ultimate winner Romain
Grosjean.
“In the race, after we'd made some changes, the
car felt a lot better and it was much more drivable. We
were able to make up a number of positions and the most
important thing was to finish and for that reason I backed
off at the first corner – everyone was being a bit
crazy heading into there!”
And because his closest points challengers, Bruno Senna
and Kamui Kobayashi failed to add to their tally, it puts
Fairuz in a great position to capitalise in the final race
tomorrow.
Results
GP2 Asia Series, Dubai, Feature Race:
1 Romain Grosjean, ART Grand Prix, 59m 37.711s
2 Sébastien Buemi, Trust Team Arden, +1.933s
3 Yelmer Buurman, Trust Team Arden, +3.549s
11 Fairuz Fauzy, Super Nova Racing, +30.744s
Points
1 Romain Grosjean 61
2 Vitaly Petrov 33
3 Sébastien Buemi 32
4 Fairuz Fauzy 23
= Bruno Senna 23
6 Kamui Kobayashi 22
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