Fuseworks – April 17, 2012, 7:19 am
Marrakech – A brilliant drive by Chris van der Drift during the second race of the Auto GP World Series in the streets of Marrakech.
The 26-year old from New Zealand started fifth, made early overtaking manoeuvres, incredibly fast lap times and a clear pit stop. He came out in front and won. “What a race! Finally it’s all coming together after struggling in earlier races and now we came here with Manor MP Motorsport and bounced back to the top”, says van der Drift.
Already during free practice, van der Drift knew that this could be a weekend not to forget. The car felt great and after a few setup changes, he was ready for qualifying. When racing on narrow street circuits, you can expect crashing competitors. Therefore it was important to set a competitive lap time early in session, as van der Drift did. “I was in third after the first run feeling like I could get down to business, we fitted our second set of tires and went out on track”, says the fast Kiwi. But then the red flags popped up. He had one chance left to improve, but the chequered flag came earlier than anticipated. “So I didn’t manage to improve my time and got bumped back to fourth. Nevertheless we were at the sharp end on the grip and I knew we really had the pace.”
Damage control
All the drivers had to use the super soft tires at some point over the weekend and that makes it difficult to predict the rivals’ strategy and what it does to the car. When the race got underway, the super soft tires were quickly destroyed. Van der Drift pitted early to have new ones. “At the end of the race I was wheel spinning in fourth gear down the straight and was lapping around four seconds slower than the top three, that used other tires”, explains van der Drift who brought the car home in fourth.
A brilliant win
Chris got a brand new set of soft tires at his disposal for race two on Sunday. He got off the line better than the last few races and moved from fifth to third. When hunting down his rival, he slipped down to fourth, but quickly gained two places when two guys in front of him crashed out of the race. Van der Drift got into his rhythm, maintained the gap to the race leader and was also able to conserve his tires. When the driver in front pitted, van der Drift knew it was his time to attack. “My engineer was on the radio saying “push push push”, I then knocked off half a second of my lap times and realized my tires were hanging on just fine. I had five laps to close the gap of five seconds before my pit stop”, explains van der Drift. When it was his time to stop, the pit crew delivered a faultless and superfast job. When he left the pit lane, he was in first place. “I couldn’t believe that and from there I had just a couple laps to keep him at bay, getting up to speed and crossing the line first.”
Tears of joy
Chris van der Drift has had a difficult time in motor racing s of late. He wasn’t able to win races after his massive incident at Brands Hatch in 2010, where he was a Superleague Formula title challenger. “The win was so emotional, that I even had a tear in my eyes on the lap back to the pits. It’s hard to explain how it feels inside when you want this so much and finally it all pays off”, says van der Drift. “It hasn’t been easy getting a drive for the last two seasons, and just finally all the hard work has paid off. Without the support of Manor MP Motorsport, all of this wouldn’t have happened. And being a new team in the series, I think this is an amazing achievement by a brilliant bunch of people. Thank you!”
The next meeting of Auto GP is scheduled during the weekend of 5th / 6th May at the Hungaroring in Hungary.
via Van der Drift wins in Morocco Motorsport – News – Yahoo! New Zealand Sport.
