Qualifying was extremely tight – the top 4 were covered by less than half a tenth, whilst it was around 2 tenths for the top 9. Despite what the championship standings state, it has been a very tight season pace wise, but this was the closest yet. In the end it was Oliver Taras who came out on top, with Scott Flack P2, followed by the Malta Forces of Mateusz Majka and Pawel Andrzejewski.
Race 1 saw Majka get a better launch, and he tiptoed around the outside of Flack to steal P2 at turn 2. Jesper Eriksson was trying to get by Andrzejewski but was unable to do so.
So it stayed, until lap 11 when Taras peeled off. A lap later, Andrzejewski and Eriksson followed. Majka stayed out – could he extend and potentially give himself a tyre offset, or even overcut Taras, who was now possibly in traffic?
The answer was yes and no. When Majka finally stopped on lap 15 he emerged behind Taras, but for the Pole he was unable to capitalise and ultimately fell short. Pawel Andrzejewski managed to secured P3 for Malta Force, further highlighting their performance this season.
There was almost a dead heat between Eriksson and Lahtinen for P4, with Jesper just nicking it at the line.
Race 2 saw Lucas Thylin and Scott Flack on the front row, the reverse grid gods in their favour. However, Andrzejewski attempted to make a move on Flack, and the two made contact immediately in T3 on the opening lap, with Pawel spearing off track and taking Jasse Lahtinen with him. The two drivers were out on the spot.
Pawel said afterwards: “This was the high risk move that either you make it and keep the championship dream alive, the other time you pay the highest prize. This time unfortunately it was the second option. I cleared that out with Scott aftermath immediately. This is racing, such things happen and we must live with that.”
This meant that the door opened for Thylin and Jesper Eriksson to gap the field, and this duly occurred. However, there was a race-long tussle between Majka and Taras that culminated in a last lap squabble that saw them go wheelbanging into turn 1, with Taras coming off the worst and spinning, but still maintaining the position.
With 50 points available now, and 47 the lead for Majka, it seems almost inevitable that he will secure the title. Andrzejewski will be hoping for a miracle for his team mate in order to nick it off him, as we head to the final round of the season at Abu Dhabi.
After the event Mateusz said “Qualifying was a big gamble – I damaged the car on my first push lap and had to use ESC, which meant starting from the back for the final round. I decided it was better to take that penalty at Yas Marina rather than Interlagos.
Despite that, the pace was surprisingly strong for a track where I’ve never felt comfortable. In Race 1 I extracted everything that was possible, even though I couldn’t get past Oliver, who was incredibly fast this weekend. Race 2 was all about tyre strategy – I went for the softer compound, which made the final laps difficult, but I managed to bring it home in P3. Overall, a very positive weekend, although it’s a shame about Pawel’s incident in Race 2 – I was really looking forward to fighting him until the very end.”
