Some scratches on Jazeman Jaafar’s car are all ISR took home from the first race of the F.Renault 3.5 season in Monza. After starting the weekend on a high with very good laptimes in yesterday’s Practices the team had high expectations for today but things didn’t go to plan. The morning qualifying session saw Jazeman secure P9 on the grid, a spot that due to traffic and a couple of driving mistakes didn’t reflect the Malaysian’s true potential. Monza providing plenty of overtaking spots, the team was still confident that a podium result was possible in Race 1, but Lady Luck had something different in store for the outfit owned by Igor Salaquarda: after a good start and an amazing first lap that had allowed him to gain one spot on Buller, Jafaar rocketed alongside Marco Sorensen on the start/finish straight just to see the Dane turn on his front left wheel, get airborne and at the same time send ISR’s car in a wild spin. Luckily both drivers emerged unscathed from the crash, but considering that the contact happened at a speed well over 250 kph, that was a very lucky outcome.
Jazeman Jaafar: Q1 – P9; R1 – DNF
“It’s a pity. Qualifying hadn’t been so great in the morning but in the race the car felt good and after an ok start I had already gained one place passing Buller at the exit of Ascari. Then I saw Sorensen go a bit sideways in Parabolica, and I took the chance to put my wheels alongside him on the straight. And then he made that nonsense move. Probably he wanted to bring me close to the wall, but instead he just steered on my nose, and our race was over. Considering the speed we were doing at the moment of the accident we were quite lucky to be unscathed”.