GP3 Series 2016 - Round 09 - Abu Dhabi
Ultimate Round of the 2016 Season is taking place in the astonishing circuit of Abu Dhabi in the UAE.
A different schedule to the usual one again for this race week-end with the Free Practice and Qualifying taking place on friday and then the long race at mid day on Saturday and the short reversed grid on Sunday at mid day.
Day 1 : Free Practice : it was the first time of the year the GP3 Series was using the Super Soft Pirelli Compound and as all the team were expecting high degradation for the long race, the Jenzer Boys made the gamble to keep one new set for the race and therefore doing the full free practice on the Hard Compound (carry over from Sepang Race). Pace was pretty good on this tyres, as before the rest of the field fitted the Super Soft Compound, Arjun Maini was P3 at only 2 tenths from the fastest driver. Obviously when all the other drivers fitted their new tyres, the Jenzer Boys went down on the classification, Arjun Maini finishing P16, Alessio Lorandi P18 and Akash Nandy P20, but the confidence was high for a good result in qualifying.
Day 1 : Qualifying : a couple of hours after the end of the Free Practice the Jenzer Boys went back on track for their qualifying. First time of the week end for them to learn and use the maximum of their Super Soft Compound. Unfortunately for Alessio, his qualifying was shortened from the beginning with a electronic failure on his Gearbox sensor which prevented him to perform any timed lap and had to sit in the pitlane for the whole qualifying, meaning he would start the race for the last position of the grid. Arjun Maini was in the battle for the top position during the whole qualifying and despite been blocked on his last attempt in the final sector was able to get P7 at only 0,08 sec from P3 - showing how close was the fight for the first rows. Akash was able to qualify P19 for his last qualy of the season.
Day 2 : Race 1 : The Jenzer Drivers knew the race would be tricky with thos hot temperatures to be able to manage as best as they could their tyres for the long race and having kept a set of brand new tyres for the race would be an advantage. Arjun got a good start off the line but was held up in a mess in the first corner who made him run wide and had a contact on the rear left tyres with another driver arriving into Turn 5 who made him lost some more positions ending up the first lap on P10. The safety car came on track and at the restart, he lost a couple of positions which he kept up to the end of the race and crossed the chequered flag in P14. The tyres degradation was not as high as expected and there wasn't big drop off through the end of the race. Alessio made a good race and recoverd from his last position to finish the race P12 and Akash Nandy finished P13.
Day 3 : Race 2 : The target for the last race of the season was to finish on a high and all 3 drivers had the will to chase the last points available for the season. A contact at the start for Alessio ruined all his hopes as he had to pit to change his front wing and went at the back of the field for the rest of the race to finish P20. Eventless race for Akash Nandy who finished P13 while after a great start Arjun Maini was pushed off in the first corner at a safety car restart and went down to P17 and fight his way back up to P14 in a short race which didn't let him go further up.
Global disappointing races which didn't show our potential as we showed it during qualifying but the year was full of positive points which will transform into bigger results in 2017 with our drivers line up for next season.
On the Prize Giving Ceremony which happened on the Sunday Night, Team Jenzer was awarded with the Best Multicultural Team hosting in his team more than 13 differents nationalities among his crew and drivers from : Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Denmark, Argentina, United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Colombia, Slovakia, China.
