Javi Villa Scoring His First Points as Well as His First Podium on Home Soil
May 23, 2007
After the great results obtained a fortnight ago at Montmeló, Racing Engineering arrives on a high at one of the most eagerly anticipated dates of the year, the race on Monaco’s street track.
The GP2 series will run on the famous streets of the Principality of Monaco for its third race weekend of the season. The special nature of the track means that this is a totally unique weekend, with a different format than any other GP2 race meetings. Instead of the usual two races, the feature on Saturday and the sprint on Sunday, at Monaco the GP2 cars will compete only once. This single race will be at 4PM on Saturday while the training sessions will start on Thursday with an extra free practice. The starting grid will be, as usual, decided on the Saturday qualifying, due at the earlier time of 10:00 in the morning.
The two Racing Engineering drivers arrive at Monaco still holding on to the good feelings left by the very good team result they achieved at Montmeló. For Javi Villa scoring his first points, as well as his first podium on home soil, in front of his fans was a really special moment in his still short but already exciting career. Javi’s second position in Sunday’s race was for Racing Engineering the confirmation of why the team and his sponsors, Repsol and Telefónica, have been betting so hard on the young Spaniard. The talent that Racing Engineering’s team principal, Alfonso D’Orleans, has always recognised in Javi was more evident than ever in the two races held at the Catalonian track and that success should mean the start of a very positive season for Villa in his second year in GP2. At Monaco Javi proved last year how well he can run on such a complex track, scoring his best qualifying result of the season, albeit his race was ruined alter being hit from behind by a following car entering the always incident prone St. Devote corner.
Sergio Jiménez, for his part, also showed at Barcelona how good his driving is and how much he can add to the team efforts in his maiden GP2 season. The young Brazilian driver scored points in both races showing his fast development at the wheel of the Dallara. On a track that he already knew from his F3 racing, Sergio could finally compete without the disadvantage of lack of circuit experience, something he faces at most of the other races, and this allowed him to show up his true potential. At Monaco, Sergio faces the always tough challenge of driving for first time through the streets of the Principality so his initial target will be to learn the track as soon as possible, without any incidents that would prevent another potentially good result. The young Brazilian has got class enough to spring a surprise.
