It was back to school for the young guns of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 after the summer break, as the group got back in action at the brand new Motorland Aragon circuit. This is where the final round of the World Series by Renault season is to be staged in October and championship leader Antonio Felix da Costa (Motopark Academy) has got off on very much the right foot by clocking the fasting lap over the two days of collective testing on this new track.
It was back to school for the young guns of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 after the summer break, as the group got back in action at the brand new Motorland Aragon circuit. This is where the final round of the World Series by Renault season is to be staged in October and championship leader Antonio Felix da Costa (Motopark Academy) has got off on very much the right foot by clocking the fasting lap over the two days of collective testing on this new track
The holidays already seemed far away as the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 drivers got back to the job, fully focussed on the run-in to the end of the season, which will take them to the Nürburgring in a fortnight, then back here to Motorland Aragon for the grand finale of the season. To prepare for the final straight of this campaign, drivers and teams have had 48 hours of testing to get to know the new circuit, situated in the region of Alcañiz.
This session saw Andrea Roda (BVM Minardi Team), Zoel Amberg (Jenzer Motorsport), Eddie Cheever (Jenzer Motorsport) and Jan Kelly (Krenek Motorsport) join the ranks of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, while Italian driver Federico Scionti was able to get behind the wheel for the first time with Epsilon Euskadi. To get to grips with the characteristics of this 5460meter-long circuit, the drivers put in as many laps as possible during the first session on Wednesday morning. Lap times came down in a big way and the end of the session proved decisive in fixing the day’s pecking order. With 45 laps under his belt, Albert Costa (Epsilon Euskadi) finished the morning on top of the timing screens with a best laptime of 2’02’’087, ahead of Kevin Magnussen (Motopark Academy) and Antonio Felix da Costa.
The afternoon followed a similar pattern. The circuit was hot, the drivers spent a little less time on track, but the wave of fastest laps kicked in at the end of the session. With a lap clocked at 2’01’’448, Albert Costa turned in the performance of the day.
Thursday saw all the drivers improve their times. Marco Sorensen was one to turn heads, with the fastest lap of the morning (2’00’’063) ahead of Jean-Éric Vergne. Despite the infernal heat, Antonio Felix da Costa was able to up the pace still further in the afternoon. At the end of the day, the Portuguese driver was the only one to go under two minutes, with 1’59’’841. Overall, after these two days of collective testing, he finished ahead of Albert Costa, Marco Sorensen, Jean-Éric Vergne and Kevin Magnussen.
Quote, unquote:
Antonio Felix da Costa:“The main aim of these two days was to find out all about this circuit. It’s a very fine race track. The first day went well and today was even better, because I was able to pull out the overall fastest time. I’m ready for the final phase of this Championship now and I’m going for the title."
Albert Costa:“Yesterday I was quickest in both sessions, but this morning I wasn’t very pleased how it went. At the beginning of the afternoon I went to watch the other drivers out on track to work on correcting my lines. That worked right away. I took the second best laptime, in spite of a small mistake… but I prefer to be second today and win both races at the end of October!”
Jean-Éric Vergne:“It’s a beautiful circuit, with some technical sections, but also a long straight. So it’s difficult to choose between the long and medium ratio box. Yesterday there was no grip, insofar as we were the first to drive out there. We have a very good car, as we showed with the laptime this morning on used tires. The track conditions will be very different at the end of October, which is why we didn’t switch to new tires this afternoon. Nevertheless we are very happy with our level of performance.”
