The opening round of the 2017 World Series Formula V8 3.5 handed two second row positions to SMP Racing by AVF at Silverstone, in a shared event with the FIA World Endurance Championship. The pairing meant that the timetable was adjusted accordingly. The first Collective Test session went underway on Thursday with the drivers fielded by Adrián Vallés and his team, Matevos Isaakyan and Egor Orudzhev, ending up third and fifth respectively at their first run for the operation.
On Friday morning, Orudzhev scored P2 in Collective Test 2, just 0.043s off the lead while Isaakyan finished P8. In qualifying, a strong rainfall came two minutes before the start of the session and many drivers got on-track with wet weather tires. Although the track improved constantly, it remained pretty tricky to tame. Despite the challenging conditions though, the two Russians from the SMP Racing program secured third and fourth place, locking out the second row and showing enough potential to contend for pole. Qualifying 2 will go underway tomorrow at 9:00 followed by race 1 at 11:56.
Egor Orudzhev (SMP Racing by aVF)
“The session was tricky, we went immediately out on the wet tires to see how the track was and be ready in case proper rain started. We had a good time with that kind of tires. I think we had the best feeling than anyone else. Rain stopped straight away. When slicks began to work we switched to them, even if we spend many laps to see where the limit was. In the final run everything went as planned, I could have been in pole but I lost the car in the last corner and that’s why we’re P3, but still satisfied”.
Matevos Isakyan (SMP Racing by aVF)
“I have mixed feelings from free practice as we had some technical issues, but we fixed them. In qualifying we were strong, I was pushing hard but I got blocked. That cost me 3 or 4 tenths of a second and a shot at the front row and the pole. I’m confident for qualifying 2 tomorrow and both races on Saturday and Sunday”.