Davide Rigon “What a pity!”

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“It was horrible. A whole week end work, a more than 22 hours race and a podium vanished at the door of the finish line”, this is Davide Rigon’s first statement on his return from the 24 hours race which took place at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit last week end. The 24 hours of Spa was the Blancpain Endurance Series Championship’s penultimate event.

The adventure of the Italian talented racer on the Belgian track, behind the wheel of the Kessel Racing Team’s Ferrari 458 GT3, can be summed up by his statement. Davide Rigon and his team mates Ramos and Zampieri ran a solid and perfect race since the beginning (they were stronger than a brake issue occurred five hours after the start), getting ahead to the third place, ready to preserve their leadership and try to take the final win. A little more than an hour before the chequered flag, a technical issue chilled the whole paddock, as the Italo-Brazilian pair had to withdraw.

“Everything was perfect until that moment. The car worked well and the staff was doing a great job. We had worked so well and set good times. At the fifth hour we had a brake issue, so we wasted so much time, but we were able to recover so quickly, displaying a great determination. We leave Spa with a bitter taste in our mouth, but we’re aware that we have what it takes to strive for the title at the Nurburgring”, says Davide.

Because of their withdrawal, the three drivers are not the Championship leaders anymore and the last event at the Nurburgring will be a real final race in the hunt for the title “Everything will be determined in September at the Ring” ends Rigon, giving all enthusiasts appointment for the week end of September 21st, for the Nurburgring conclusive race.

Hungarian GP – UP & DOWN

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After the Hungarian GP and the first win sealed by the Mercedes’ driver Lewis Hamilton, let’s grade the protagonists.

LEWIS HAMILTON 10 – He drove a perfect qualifying race. He had a perfect tyre management during the race, attacking and defending in the right moments.

KIMI RAIKKONEN 8.5 – Unfortunately his qualifying race was not so good, this is the reason why he doesn’t deserve to get a higher grade. He deserves a high grade for the race he drove, which was excellent. He pitted only twice and had an excellent tyre management. What a pity for the qualifying race.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN 7 – He deserves a high grade, I think he was penalized too much. If he had been another driver, the commissioners would have been more benevolent.

SEBASTIAN VETTEL 7.5 – He was confident to take the pole so he was a little bit nervous during the qualifying race. During the race he attacked Raikkonen in vain, accusing the Finn of being unfair. Considering Webber’s result, he would have given much more.

MARK WEBBER 8.5 – Despite bad luck always picks on him, he drove an excellent race; he recovered and scored important points.

FERNANDO ALONSO 6 – He barely gets a passing grade. To be honest, I didn’t expect him to make those pre and post-race statements. He managed to get a good result in an unlucky week end for Ferrari, but, you win and lose together with your team. He managed to score important points, but he doesn’t get a higher grade because of his statements. Massa doesn’t get a passing grade.

JENSON BUTTON 7 – He was able to manage a not-so-performing McLaren in the best way.

PASTOR MALDONADO 7 – In a very difficult day, he was able to score the first point. At this point of the Championship, it gets more and more difficult to get the points zone, as the five top teams (Red Bull, Mercedes, Lotus, Ferrari and McLaren) don’t want to give away anything. Second-tier teams will have to try to take advantage of each chance available, just like Pastor did, taking advantage of Rosberg’s withdrawal.

                                                                                                                                                        

Hungarian GP- PREVIEW

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With the Hungarian GP, the F.1 World Championship enters the hot part of the season. There are only 9 GP left after the Hungarian racing week end. Each of them is really important. After the summer break, with the Belgian and Italian GP to be held in Spa and Monza, standing could be outlined.

The Budapest-based circuit looks like a kart track, where overtaking is really a difficult task, even if there will be two DRS zones. Every single mistake is paid twice at the Hungarian circuit. The Hungarian GP will be run after the three-day-test session at Silverstone and new tyres will make any prevision even harder. The Pirelli will provide all teams with tyres which have 2012 season tyre shoulder and 2013 compound. I don’t think it will change anything in terms of forces involved, anyway it will be a further matter of uncertainty.

As we saw in Silverstone, the Red Bull continues to deliver strong performances, but also Ferrari ran lots of km and gained important data to develop the F138. Rigon did a great job and Massa delivered good performances. Mercedes did a good job, as well. The German team could be one more challenger for the victory.

Qualifying will be very important in Hungary, anyway many factors can influence the race, so we won’t have a foregone conclusion. The laps to run are so many and drivers will probably have to pit more than expected because of high temperatures. A sort of lane is usually created on the track and drivers will have to try not to go outside that in order to avoid losing grip. Strategy will play a key role, so it will be necessary to drive a perfect race to get good results.

We’ll see which team has been the best to try to bridge the gap with Red Bull, which delivered excellent performances even at the Nurburgring. The more the Championship goes ahead, the harder it will be for the second-tier teams to enter the top 10. This was clearly displayed by the German GP standing.

Rigon on the way to Spa to take part in the 24H race

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Turned off the F138’s V8 engine, Davide Rigon is ready to take part in the Spa 24H, the Blancpain Endurance Series’ fourth round, at the wheel of a Maranello car, this week end.

The Ardenne-based track will host the International GT competition’s most important race and the talented Italian driver and his teammates Zampieri and Ramos will take part in the competition at the wheel of the Ferrari 458 GT3 #44 as the overall leaders. The 24H 65th edition is the most awaited race of the Championship, not only for the track’s beautiful landscape, but also because score will be assigned after the 6th, the 12th and the 24th hour “The atmosphere you experience at the Spa 24H is amazing. It’s the most important race as taking part at the Spa competition is like running a whole season”, says Rigon “We’re the Championship leaders, but there the standing will be reset to zero. It’s almost impossible to make a prediction, as the race is so demanding and many factors have to be taken into consideration. The Kessel Racing team is doing a great job, so this gives me great confidence. It’s up to the three of us not to make mistakes.”

On the 7004 m long track, the green light will switch on on Thursday at 9.45am with a free practice session which will be followed by pre-qualifying and qualifying sessions to be held at night (at 8.10pm) to assign the pole start for the race to start on Friday at 6.15pm “Qualifying is very important at Spa, as if you get a good position on the starting grid, you’ll avoid to be involved in a clash on the first laps.”

More than 70 cars will take part in the long race which will start on Saturday at 4.30pm. This is the third time Rigon takes part in the Belgian competition, after his great success in 2008 in the FIA GT World Championship and the unlucky experience in the past season, when the #71 car’s recovery was ruined by a technical issue “Winning the FIA GT Championship in 2008 at the wheel of a Ferrari racing car was an amazing experience, even because it was the first time I took part in that Championship. Unfortunately last year it didn’t go as we would have liked it to go, so we hope to take a revenge this week end”, ends Davide Rigon.

                           

YDT – Rigon "A positive outcome"

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The curtain has come down on the Young Driver Test at Silverstone, which saw ten of the Formula 1 teams entered for the Formula 1 World Championship taking part with a variety of drivers, some  young prospects, some older. For Scuderia Ferrari, Felipe Massa was the race driver in action at the English track, testing the new Pirelli compounds, along with Davide Rigon, a car development driver for the Scuderia since 2011. The Brazilian did 69 laps, setting the sixth fastest time of the day in 1.33.624. Rigon was back in the Ferrari cockpit in the afternoon, to continue the programme of aerodynamic testing which he had started on Wednesday. He was fifth fastest in a time of 1.33.592, having done 20 laps.

“It seems to me these tyres work better, at least compared to what we saw in the race here” said Felipe Massa at the end of his session. “Over the three days, no one had any problems and from the safety aspect, this is the most important thing. The prototype Hard seemed maybe too hard to race on. I think that in the coming Grands Prix we could head towards a choice of the softer compounds, because they can work at lower temperatures and last longer. Temperature has a significant effect on our car and here for the race for example, it did not help us, but let’s see what happens in Hungary, where we can expect hotter conditions. You need a lot of aerodynamic downforce there and let’s hope we can find the right solutions to be competitive”.

“The past three days have been positive, as I didn’t make any mistakes and I learned a lot” commented Rigon, at the end of the day. “I hope that all the work will have given the team some useful data, maybe some that can be used to prepare for the upcoming races. Again today, we were not concerned with lap times, nor did we make big changes. Instead, we concentrated on adapting the set-up to the new tyres. Now this information will be passed on to our colleagues at the simulator. I think this test has been very useful for my work and also my personal experience, even though I don’t see it as finite, neither for me nor the car because there are no limits to improvement”.

With the Young Driver Test completed, the Scuderia is now preparing for the Hungarian Grand Prix, the tenth round of the Formula 1 World Championship, which takes place next weekend at the Hungaroring.

Rigon at the wheel of the Ferrari F138 in the Young Driver Test at Silverstone

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Starting from today, until Friday, Davide Rigon will take part in the young driver tests at wheel of the Ferrari 138. This is the second year the talented Italian driver takes part in the event. The Ferrari cooperator since 2011 will give way to Massa on Friday morning, to test the new Pirelli tyres.

This decision will allow Davide to focus on the car technical development and will give Massa the chance to spend more time inside the cockpit in the attempt to release him from the German GP.

The tyre test program, which is open to official drivers as a result of a dispensation granted by the Federation as a consequence of the problems aroused at Silverstone during the GP which took place on June the 30th, is planned by the Pirelli upon the approval of the FIA. Drivers will have a limited number of tyre sets at their disposal.

The Blancpain Endurance Series leader gets back at the wheel of a Ferrari F1 car in an official event, after the great job done in the last season, during which he took part in one of the three test days, alternating the wheel with Bianchi, who is now a Marussia F1 team’s driver.

Happy working Champion!

The Formula ACI CSAI Abarth gets ready for the second half of the season

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In the homeland of the famous poet Dante Alighieri, spotlights were put on the Formula ACI CSAI Abarth Championship again, last week end. Set aside the third round, the Italian championship is now ready to enter the second half of the season and the standing is still far to be defined.

Analyzing the Italian series data, the “perfect number” appears several times: besides the number of races still to be run (Imola, Misano and Monza) and many others which have already been raced, three is also the number of the drivers who finished the race within few points (Michele Beretta, Simone Iaquinta and Lukas Moraes), all behind Alessio Rovera, who is the leader in the overall results. Many other drivers competed for the win in the last race event.

The Tuscan race week end started with Alessio Rovera’s double pole, thanks to which the young driver has taken six out of six pole-starts until now. But Michele Beretta and Simone Iaquinta reversed the situation once again and, in race -2 and race -3 respectively, they kept the race high-spirited with a view to the second half.

“The Formula ACI CSAI Abarth is a high-level Championship. It’s a training series for the youngsters who want to face up to the world of Formulas. We saw interesting races at the Mugello, each of them was won by a different driver”, says Gian Carlo Minardi “Now we’re entering the second half of the season with at least four drivers pretending for the title. The ACI CSAI is already working for the 2014 season, in order to make this Formula more and more attractive to new teams and racers”, explains the ACI CSAI Federation School Supervisor and Ferrari cooperator.

The Formula ACI CSAI Abarth’s next race week end will take place on September 1st at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola.

Bhai Tech wins at Silverstone and proves itself to be the GTS leader

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The aim was to finish in the points zone…….well the victory has come!! On the challenging Silverstone’s track, Bhai Tech laid a prefect poker on the table. The Italian team scored its fourth good result and managed to take its third International GT Open Championship’s class win of the season, proving itself to be the International GT Open’s leader. At the domestic circuit, the two McLarens of the Italian team, directed by Mr. Roberto Costa the engineer, offered the English audience a great GTS class show, made of battles and passes.

After taking the first and second row in GTS class qualifying 1, thanks to a second and third GTS chrono scored respectively by Pantano/Suzuki and Van Der Drift/Razia, the two pairs took the class lead and finished first and second, scoring the third double win of the season. The cold shower came at the end of the competition, when race commissioners penalized the McLaren #66 with a 30’’ sanction for an infringement on the starting grid, which dropped the pair from 2nd to 5th in GTS “It was really absurd. In over 30 years of professional activity, I’ve never seen anything like that, even because we’re talking about a tyre, not about wiring or mechanical amendments. We’re regretful but, despite we were penalized with a 30’’ sanction, we managed to finish in the points zone, anyway, displaying we’re improving time after time”, says the technical director Costa.

In the Silverstone final race, Bhai Tech Racing was author of an exciting recovery made by Pantano/Suzuki, who made a hard struggle until the end. Started from the 9th row, after setting the 18th best lap time in the overall result (13th in GTS), the Italian/Brazilian pair was author of a great recovery, recovering 11positions. In the last few laps Pantano accomplished the mission by leading the Mestrino-based squad to the 8th place in the overall standing, the 4th in GTS. Unlucky Sunday, instead, for Razia/Van Der Drift who had to withdraw because of a technical issue.

“It was a hard week end since the beginning, because of several electric issues. Furthermore Suzuki’s accident on the first lap denied him the possibility to take part in the free practice sessions, so he was handicapped in qualifying -2. He raced without having any references and, once he found the right pace, the time had already run out. Razia made a very good job by leading his McLaren to the third place in GTS. Unfortunately in race -1 Van Der Drift lost his power a little bit but he managed to finish second, anyway, behind his team mates. We have to praise Giorgio Pantano because in race-1 he was author of a great recovery. If he had run some more laps, he would have fought for the win. Unfortunately Razia and Van Der Drift were stopped by an accelerator unit issue which forced them to abandon. Given the good results they got in qualifying and on Saturday, they could have driven an excellent race and fight for the podium, at least”, ends Costa “Even the pit-stop guys made an excellent job. Pit-stops were perfect and the pit-stop time was even shorter than expected.”

Bhai Tech has now 17 points. The team keeps the GTS leadership, taking a 12 points advantage over the main pursuer and is second in the constructors’ championship. Thanks to the win in race -1 and the fourth place, Giorgio Pantano and Rafael Suzuki jump up to the second place in the GTS drivers’ standing, being just one point behind the first. The second pair Luiz Razia/ Chris Van Der Drift is 6th.

The cars are on their way back to the Advanced Vehicle Science Centre in Mestrino, where they will be overhauled before taking part in the Spa race, scheduled for September 7th and 8th.

BHAI TECH READY TO LAY ITS POKER ON THE TABLE AT SILVERSTONE

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One month after the Spanish round at Jerez de La Frontera, Bhai Tech Racing’s four drivers Pantano/Suzuki and Van Der Drift/Razia gets ready to race again at the wheel of the McLaren MP4 – 12C.

The historic and charming circuit of Silverstone will be the place where the International GT Open Championship’s fifth round will take place. F.1 GP is raced at the English circuit since the ‘50s. On the 5891 m long track located in the Northamptonshire , the Mestrino-based squad directed by Mr. Roberto Costa the engineer, will try to “lay its poker on the table” to continue to get good result and deliver the same stunning performances performed throughout the first half of the Championship. The Italian team will race at Silverstone as the GTS class leader, after taking a double win at the Nurburgring.

The track’s “trade-mark” is represented by the three famous corners named Maggots, Becketts and Chapel, which all lead to the long straight called Hangar Straight “Silverstone is a very fast track, so it doesn’t suit our McLarens so well. In this month we’ve continued to do a complete development work, without focusing on a particular area of the car. We’ve worked side by side with McLaren to help the team to develop, basing our work on all data reported from other Championships”, says Mr. Costa, the engineer.

A great job was done not only at the factory, but also at the cutting edge driving simulator suite which is inside the Advanced Vehicle Science Centre “Our drivers have made several simulator sessions to become more familiar with the English track and get prepared to deal with any situation. We’re talking about a track where a driver can really make the difference. It will be so important to avoid mistakes and make the most of our potential”, comments the technical director.

It will be a domestic race for the Italian team, which is partnered with the McLaren “this is one more cause to do a great job”. When we talk about Silverstone, weather conditions play a very important role “The temperature is very pleasant at Silverstone in these days, it’s about 23-24° C. It would be better for us to race in the dry, but we’ll have to wait for the race week end to come to have more detailed information about that”, ends Mr. Costa.

The race week end will start on Friday with two 60’ free practice sessions in preparation for the two qualifying sessions to define the two races’ starting order (on Saturday at 9.45 am and at 11.40 am). The 70’ race 1 will start at 4.00 pm on Saturday. The 50’ final race will start on Sunday at 12.oo o’clock.

German GP – Up & Down

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Even the ninth round has finished. Let’s take some votes on the German GP’s main protagonists.

PIRELLI 7 – After last week’s great issue, the supplier was able to find a solution to a ridiculous technical situation. They hadn’t any problem this time. However I’m still skeptic about the changeableness of tyre behavior; I can understand the difference between different types of compound, but I cannot understand the reason why tyres behavior changes so much whenever the temperature of the asphalt changes a little bit. I don’t think it’s the right way to make a GP more spectacular.

Sebastian Vettel 9 – There isn’t much more to say. He can always make the most of an excellent car and he was able to recover from Silverstone’s whitewash. Webber was very clever, as well. The Australian was able to respond to the problem he had during pit-stop in a very good way. He recovered several positions and scored points, showing he can make it onto the podium.

Raikkonen 8.5 – Excellent GP both for him and for the Lotus.

Romain Grosjean 8 – He was a good aggressor and team man. He gave way to his team mate.

Fernando Alonso 7.5 – This mark is only for Alonso, not for the Ferrari team which is in trouble at the moment.

Jenson Button 7 – He showed he is able to give the best of himself, making the most of his McLaren which is not yet at the top. The team can be a dangerous outsider also in Hungary, where temperatures will be so high.

Sergio Perez – Nico Rosberg – Nico Hulkenberg – Daniel Ricciardo 6 – The racers who deserve this mark the most are the Toro Rosso’s driver Ricciardo, who drove a very good qualifying race and the Sauber’s German driver who scored one point.

Rigon and Kessel almost got a podium finish at Le Castellet

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With the round at the French Circuit Paul Ricard, the Blancpain Endurance Series’ second half of season has begun.  Davide Rigon and Kessel Racing are the leaders of both standings.

At the wheel of the Ferrari 458, the talented Italian driver, along with his teammates Ramos and Zampieri, almost finished onto the podium again, scoring important points for the Championship and showing to be in a very good shape to take part in the next round, the Spa-Francorchamps 24 hours, which is scheduled for the end of July “The Spa 24 hours is the most awaited competition, besides being the most important. Running in Spa is like running a whole season. It’s a Championship inside a Championship”, says Rigon.

It was only because of a “stop and go” penalty imposed during the last hour of the competition, that the Kessel’s trio didn’t manage to get a podium finish, which would have increased their advantage in the standing “To be honest, I think that the penalty imposed to us was too tough and it cost us a more than deserved podium. Despite that we arrive in Spa as the Championship’ leaders and we’ve shown to be able to be protagonists in any condition. However we regret we lost some points”, says Davide.

In these days the Italian driver has taken part in the collective tests on the Belgian track, to get ready to run in the 65th edition of the 24 hours, where more than 70 GT3 cars will be present on the starting grid “We ran a lot, but unfortunately our work was affected by heavy rain and bad weather. As I pointed out before, the Spa 24 hours weekend will be very important for the standing, as points will be assigned after 6,12 and 24 hours. This means that everything can still change. A little mistake is enough to ruin all the work made throughout the season”, ends the Italian racer.  

Inside Bhai Tech – Driving Simulator & Software

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Our trip inside the Bhai Tech Advanced Vehicle Science Centre, the cutting-edge centre located in Mestrino, near Padua, which was inaugurated by the Williams Team’s driver Pastor Maldonado, starts now. This year the centre celebrates its first anniversary. Thanks to its innovative design, the centre took part in a contest in Koln to be awarded the prize as 2012 best facility. Bhai Tech got through to the final, competing with the Austin-based Circuit of Americas for the win.

It’s a 2800 square metres structure on three floors which was conceived with the aim of providing teams and drivers with some facilities to support the development of Formula and GT cars and  off-track training before taking part in a racing weekend, thanks to the presence of an advanced driving simulator and modelling software, which are the core of Bhai Tech’s offering.

Through the 6-DOF full-motion driving simulator, which is fully immersive with a 8 210° 8 m diameter curved screen, five off-board projectors and two rear view visuals to ensure the view of the car’s rear part, reflecting images on the rear-view mirrors , a driver can train and study all the features of the main preparatory formulas’ most important circuits. Complementing it with the Bhai Tech vehicle modelling software, squads can arrange a racing weekend in house and compare real data with virtual ones. Besides making fluid dynamics studies and analysing tyre’s behaviour, it is also possible to analyse setup in real time and check its different behaviours “In many categories time is very tight, so the possibility to make tests is very little. This is the reason why it’s so important to have a good setup and be well prepared since Friday’s practice”, says Roberto Costa, the technical director. “All that can be developed in our headquarter, where the best setup can be studied in details. Thanks to our software, all racing weekend’s data concerning setup, tyres, downforce, can be stored and compared. So, track conditions can be fully recreated without going to the track. That contributes to bring the costs down and reduces times. At that point, we can start the development work.”

It’s an all-rounder system which goes from track to simulation and goes back to track. With test limitations in F.1, the driving simulator is an extremely important device for a single-seater development and GP preparation. All the F.1 top teams have invested so much in this respects, but simulation is a very important resource also for the preparatory series, as through that a team can develop the car in details and a driver can study the circuits he will race at and his car’s behaviour “In F.1 hundreds of technicians work at the simulator to develop the car at best. This is so expensive, in addition, telemetry and all needed data to develop a car, which is designed by them, make everything even more expansive.

Thanks to our software, we’re able to enable a team to develop its car focusing on tyre modelling, which is a very important aspect, which usually requires so much time. We can provide different setup options according to customer needs”, ends Mr. Costa, the engineer.

At the Nurburgring, where the International GT Open Championship’s third round was run, the racing division took its first double win in the GTS class, thanks to Bhai Tech Racing’s four drivers Giorgio Pantano/Rafel Suzuki and Chris Van Der Drift/Luiz Razia at the wheel of the two McLarens MP4 – 12C. They ended the first half as the Championship leaders.

German GP – Preview

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The German GP, to be held at the Nurburgring in the coming weekend, will be run in the season’s crucial moment, only a few days after the British GP at Silverstone. It will be so difficult for the teams to make upgrades. In Germany the Pirelli will bring new compounds which will have unknown results. No doubt it wouldn’t have been possible to use the same tyre used at Silverstone, because of their technical issues and I’m sure the Italian supplier will supply teams with the already-tested tyre which were used in the past season (Soft and Medium), even though cars development has been remarkable in the last few months, especially from the point of view of the downforce.

The Ferrari will have to reverse a difficult situation both in qualifying and during the race, as, besides Alonso’s talent and good performance in the last GP, the performance gap between the Italian team and Red Bull- Mercedes was still remarkable, as shown by Webber’s recovery. The Red Bull still remains the reference car and the car to defeat. Red Bull and Mercedes will fight for the pole and I think the Ferrari can achieve good results, as well.

Great attention will be focused on two outsiders such as the Toro Rosso and the Force India, who showed to be able to take some important points off the top teams. The Lotus will have to take a step backwards after the introduction of a new damping, which has given the team the same competitiveness it had at the start of the season. As far as the weather is concerned, in Germany temperatures are usually low.

MEMORIES. The Nurburgring reminds me of great moments. We took part in the F.2 covered-wheel final race and we took an amazing 2nd place with Nannini, after a beautiful bagarre with the BMW-March. In that race Nannini crossed the line having only 3 tyres left, because of a clash which drove him off track.

In a difficult 1999 F.1 season, we managed to take a 6th place with Mark Gené. We would have achieved a double success, as, thanks to excellent strategies, flawless pit-stops and weather changes, Luca Badoer was making a fantastic comeback, so he deserved the podium. Unfortunately just few laps before the end, a gearbox issue caused an oil leak, forcing him to stop his car trackside. It was one of those races in which we went from hero to zero. It would have been a great result and maybe we would have changed the history of the Minardi Team.

In its 600th GP the Williams almost scored its first points, finishing 11th and 12th. To be honest, I hoped they finished in the top 10 to make that day even more special for them. I want to congratulate Frank on his efforts to develop his team. I wish him to become again one of the F.1 Championship main protagonists.