The first race of the 2014 F.Renault 3.5 campaign brought AVF the first points of their season. In a difficult race, disrupted by the deployment of the Safety-Car in the early stages due to a scary crash between Sorensen and Jaafar, the Spanish team made the most of their staff’s experience to take advantage of any overtaking chance, and brought the car home in 9th place after an amazing drive by Zoel Amberg.
The Swiss driver did a stunning job in avoiding mistakes and fending off attacks from very aggressive rivals, and at the same time managed to gain some spots thanks to effective and well placed overtaking moves.
On the team’s other car, Beitske Visser carried on with her learning process, getting closer to her rivals in Qualifying and boasting a very good pace in the race. Unluckily, she locked up her front tyres in Turn 1 at the race re-start, and that led to a puncture that forced her to stop with just 5 laps to go.
Zoel Amberg: Q1 – P14; R1 – P9
“I saw really poor driving standards out there today. Some drivers were driving like crazy, with no respect at all for track limits, flag or even the Safety Car. Actually Stockinger overtook me under Safety-Car, and at the restart I received an heavy hit from another driver, hard enough to bend one of my front wishbones. In both cases Race Direction did nothing about that, which sounded really strange to me, but considering that the day had started with a less than ideal qualifying session we can still be happy with a top ten finish”.
Beitske Visser: Q1 – P21; R1 – DNF
“Qualifying was tough, but in the race I had the pace to recover some spots. Unluckily, after the race re-start I flat-spotted my tyres heavily at the first braking zone and from then on my race was ruined. I couldn’t drive properly because of the vibrations, at some point they got so bad that I could barely see. In the end I got a puncture at Ascari and my race was over. It’s a pity, but that’s racing”.