Pekka Saarinen Racing entered Asian Formula Renault series
AFR (Asian Formula Renault) series started exceptionally on last Tuesday and Wednesday in Zhuhai due to a world wide holidays. Last years Champion Pekka Saarinen entered his new team Pekka Saarinen Racing (PSR) to AFR series with 3 cars. Drivers for his team are Geoffrey Kwong (USA), Alexis Sabet (Colombia) and Pekka Saarinen (FIN) who is also the team manager.
"This is totally new project for me, I am so excited to see how can I pass my knowledge to my drivers. Indeed I have been racing for long time already and I always wanted to do team of my own. Also I am really happy that Kenneth Ma (CEO of FRD Motorsport) is supporting me in this project. To be honest without FRD Motorsport, my project would be extremely difficult to accomplish. So big thanks to FRD from that" said the team manager Saarinen.
Practice
PSR started to practice four days before the official practises of the first round. Geoffrey and Alexis both shown good performance in practices putting their lap time one to two second faster than they ever drove in Zhuhai.
Alexis struggled on first three days with braking, he just doesn't seems to get it right.
"I still don't know what was so god damn difficult about the braking. I don't know what happened during Saturday night when I was sleeping because on Sunday when I went to the track I was immediately much better on braking!" said Alexis.
Geoffrey insisted that he didn't have any problems on braking or on anything else. He was just missing tenth of a second around the track which was only matter of time to find those out.
"Since I have been working with Pekka I feel much more easier going on the track. He makes good and right set-up changes for me and he also always gives me new ideas how to do some corners in a different ways" said Geoff.
For the third driver, Pekka himself was instead facing a lot problems. He had many technical problems during his two days of practice.
"I don't know why I had all the problems but on the other hand it was good so that my drivers could practiced without any problems".
Official practice
Towards to the official practice on Tuesday, PSR drivers started to show their real speed. In official practice PSR drivers finished respectively in TOP 10 by Saarinen lapping the fastest lap time with a gap of 1.0sec, Kwong 1.3sec off the pace and Sabet 2.0sec behind Saarinen. Saarinen was really pleased with the process of what his drivers had made.
"Although this is our first race, I am really pleased to my driver's effort. I gave my advices to them and they really are putting that information in their head and getting faster and faster on every session. That shown that they learn very fast which is important when we go to Sepang. I am not expecting that all my drivers would be in top 5 later on at today's qualify but it is not also impossible".
Qualifying
In qualifying, PSR driver made good effort except Alexis dropped back caused by slower cars on hot laps. Geoffrey kept his good speed finished at 6th position. Saarinen lapped again fastest lap time of the qualifying session and took pole position with 0.4 seconds, ahead of ART driver Beche and March3's Niemelä. Second in last year AFR championship, ART driver Imperatori took fourth position followed by March3's Baumgartner.
Races
For race one, expectations were high in Team PSR but not everything goes well as planned. Saarinen was only one who had good race without problems. Saarinen won the first race and also with the fastest lap of the race.
"I really don't know why I am so fast. Last year I struggled at Zhuhai track and this year I am unbeatable in here. I didn't do that much testing or anything else and immediately I was fast. Weird." Said very pleased Saarinen.
Geoffrey's race didn't start so well, already on formation lap there were some problems on his cars. His engines carbon-fiber intake broke which caused a lot problems for the engine. On the race he fought very well but the problem on his car dropped him a few places back.
"I didn't expect this to go like that, in the race I was really frustrated because my car was cutting power in low and high speed corners. I was really motivated for the race, I was ready to fight for the podium places. But its ok, this is motorsport." Said Geoffrey
Due to an unlucky qualify Alexis started only from 17th position. Alexis first ever race with Formula Renault went like it was supposed to go. He managed to overtake seven cars, but on the last lap he tried to overtake Mark Williamson and he spun. After his fast recovery he managed to finish in 15th position. Alexis being still a little bit confused
"Yep the race was good and I learned a lot. Mistakes do happen. What I noticed that other drivers are quite rude/crazy on the track compared to races in US but I guess I just have to get use to it".
First race was a bit unlucky for Team PSR and some unfortunate things happened also in the Second race. The race was stopped with a red flag due to an accident in the first corner and restarted the race behind the safety car.
Saarinen who started from pole position maintained his speed which nobody could follow but the last years champion also made a mistake and spun on 2nd last lap lap. He managed to keep the car running but dropped three places to fourth. He finished the race in fourth position but the race winner Niemelä was penalized for a jump start after the race finished.
"What can I say, I never done anything like that and I will make sure it will not happen again. It could've been easy win to me but I just lost concentration". Said the champion Saarinen.
Kwong also shown his potential to move up to Atlantic-series in US by doing excellent performance in second race starting from 8th and finishing in 5th.
"Good race, but I need to be faster in Sepang to get into TOP3". Said Kwong.
Alexis started from 15th position in the second race and he shown very good performance and crossed the finish line at 9th position. But like Niemelä and some another drivers, he was penalized for a jump start and he dropped 20th position.
"wow what a weekend! I was so unlucky that even mechanics named me "Donald Duck". For the next race I just need to drive clean races and I can finish in TOP5 maybe". Said Alexis.
Races were full of action, highly dangerous situation and good racing. PSR drivers manage to avoid the accidents and team manager Saarinen was really happy from his drivers results.
"First step is done now. Always the first race is little bit confusing time but for the next race we will be ready and much stronger as a team. I am happy in the way that during the races, we had only one problem on the cars which was caused by manufacture problem and team spirit is high. When Alexis and Geoffrey will find those missing tenths of a second I think we can find all PSR cars in TOP5".
Race 1
1 Pekka Saarinen
2 Markus Samuli Niemela
3 Alexandre Imberatori
4 Maxi Baumgartner
5 JIM Ka To
Race 2
1 Alexandre IMPERATORI
2 Maxi Baumgartner
3 Pekka Saarinen
4 JIM Ka To
5 Geoffrey Kwong
Point Standings
1. Alexandre IMPERATORI 50
2. Pekka SAARINEN 50
3. Maxi Baumgartner 41
4. JIM Ka To 32
5. Markus Samuli Niemela 27
6. Mathias Beche 26
7. Geoffrey KWONG 24
17. Alexis Sabet 2
