PREMA Powerteam, Vidales take podium finish at Valencia

PREMA Powerteam claimed a podium finish with David Vidales in round 8 of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine at Valencia. Running at his home venue, the 19-year-old Spaniard showed pace since free practice and secured a front-row start in qualifying 1. Despite going for a bold attack at the start of race 1, he held on to P2 to secure a promising result and great points. Vidales qualified in P7 on Sunday as the session was red-flagged in the final moments. He quickly moved up to P5 at the start of race 2 to secure another valuable finish.

Paul Aron also showed great pace, moving from the fifth spot on the grid up to the fourth place at the end in race 1. In the second qualifying session, the Estonian could only manage P10 due to the red flag, and a wide moment at the start of race 2 pushed him down to P12, which he carried on to the finish.

Despite showing high potential in practice, Dino Beganovic could not make his way to the front in qualifying 1 and the Swede had to take off from P11. He gained one position to the top-10 and ended up third among rookies in race 1. In qualifying 2, he was among the most impacted by the red flag and had to take off from P14. A technical issue eventually forced him to retire.

“It has been a bit of an average weekend. Overall, the car was pretty good, and we were quite quick as a team. In Q1 we took the maximum, and it was a bit of a shame that we didn’t get a higher place. However, it wasn’t bad, and we also managed to take the maximum out of race 1 getting one more position and good points in P4. Both the car and the pace were really good. The situation was the same in qualifying 2, but there was a lot of traffic and I didn’t get any clean lap. I was improving in all sectors at the end, but we got a full-course yellow, and we couldn’t finish the lap. The start of race 2 was really good but got a little wide in turn 2 losing positions. The pace was there, but it was so hard to overtake. Shame we couldn’t get the results we wanted in race 2, but the car is good, and hopefully, we will be competitive at Mugello.”

 

Qualifying 1: P5

Qualifying 2: P10

Starting Grid Race 1: P3

Starting Grid Race 2:  P10

Fastest lap: 1’28″982

Fastest lap: 1’29″632

Race 1: P4

Race 2: P12

“It has been a good weekend all around. We managed to bring home good points which we had been missing in the last few races. Being back on the podium was great for me and the team as we had been looking for that for quite some time. Finally, we got the result, it seemed that we always had a great race pace but just couldn’t execute in qualifying. We finally managed to understand a few things, and that led us to P2 in qualy 1. It’s very important to start at the front in this championship, and I think we are on the right path. We got a nice confidence boost for the final four races of the season.”

 

Qualifying 1: P2

Qualifying 2: P7

Starting Grid Race 1: P2

Starting Grid Race 2: P7

Fastest lap: 1’28″833

Fastest lap: 1’29″453

Race 1: P2

Race 2: P5

“We made a great step in the right direction as a team with the performance, and the potential was very strong. It was a pity we could not show it especially in qualifying 2 as there was a full course yellow immediately before I crossed the line and my lap was deleted. We also suffered a technical issue in race 2, which forced us to retire, but performance-wise we made a major improvement and also got the fastest lap. Hopefully, we can keep this up for Mugello.”

Qualifying 1: P11

Qualifying 2: P14

Starting Grid Race 1: P11

Starting Grid Race 2: P14

Fastest lap: 1’29″265

Fastest lap: 1’29″785

Race 1: P10

Race 2: DNF

Source | Photo: PREMA Racing