Andrea Caldarelli not being able to find decent pace finishes 11th
2015 All Japan SUPER FORMULA Series Round 4 was held at Twin Ring Motegi (TochigiPrefecture) in the August 22 – 23rd weekend. Andrea Caldarelli rev’ed up to challenge another important battle at season’s mid-point, together with LENOVO TEAM IMPUL led by the Japanese motorsports legend, Kazuyoshi Hoshino.
August 22 Official Qualifying
Under rather heavy clouds, but with temperatures at 30 deg. C and humidity of 75% high, Free Practice was held from 08:30 in the morning. In this 1 hour session where 19 machines all participated, Andrea Caldarelli on LENOVO TEAM IMPUL No. 20 clocked 1’34.799 as his best time here and positioned 10th. Andrea finished this session feeling not as comfortable with braking performance of the machine.
Several hours later, as the strong summer sun and heat came back, at 1:15pm under air temperature of 34 deg. C and on track 40 deg. C, the Official Qualifying session began.
First, the Q1 (from 13:15 – 13:35) to select the top 14 qualifiers began, and all machines ran out to the field right on schedule. Andrea Caldarelli driving No. 20, LENOVO TEAM IMPUL SF14 empowered by Toyota engine (TOYOTA R14A) worked on machine setting as marking a P13 time (1’34.005) and progressed on further to the next heat. In Q2 (13:45 – 13:52) where everybody competes to get in the top 8 for Q3, Andrea pushed with stronger pursuits taking the 8th position (133.318). In Q3 (14:02 – 14:09) with more improvement of time made, Andrea finished all of Saturday with 1’33.124 time, now rising two more positions up to P6.
Andrea Caldarelli:
“We still do have several issues to clear, but considering how we started this morning in the Free session, machine has become much better and I’m glad to have finished the day in P6. I will make a discussion with my engineers overnight and make sure that I can give my utmost push in the Race tomorrow.”
August 23 (SUN) RACE
Free Practice in the morning (09:50 to 10:20) was held under hazy skies, but regardless, the session took place under Dry. In this session where everybody makes final tune-ups eyeing the Race, Andrea Caldarelli marked a P3 time of 1’35’532, but here the keen Italian driver spotted some vibration issues with the braking, Hence, now the team had to make some more final adjustments to the machine as fit for the approaching race.
Droplets of rain started falling from around 11:30am, which in no time wetted the course completely. Even so, by 15:00 o’clock when officially the Super Formula race was set to begin, all of such rain had stopped and the track was already starting to dry (Air temp.26 deg. C/ Track temp. 31 deg. C).
Over on the starting grid, Andrea kicked off from the third row of the In-side for the 52 laps (approx. 250km) of this race. Andrea Caldarelli was passed by two machines on the Out, who had a slight advantage as on that side of the track it was drier. Andrea just continued his stride through the early laps of the race in P8. And in that position, Andrea pitted just after finishing the 12th lap. This time, team had the strategy of not changing tyres, but only to re-fuel, which helped their driver return quickly to the field. However, LENOVO TEAM IMPUL SF15, No. 20 could not quite pick up its usual speed yet. Not only that, for numerous times it was caught behind other machines pitting out, – additionally with the fact that there is not much space to overtake on this track at Twin Ring Motegi, – No. 20 struggled to break through. Despite such rather frustrating situations, Andrea drove with patience, until getting the chequer in 11th.
Andrea Caldarelli
“Unfortunately, I cannot say today’s race was a great race … After pit stop, fuel was heavier and then I struggled with machine control, not being able to find the pace I wanted, so it was quite tough. Towards the end when the car got lighter (*with less fuel), I could pace up a bit but at that point in the race there was not much room left to raise my position.”
The next round of the SUPER FORMULA , Rd. 5 will be held at Autopolis (Oita Prefecture) over September 12 -13th.
Photos by TOSHIKAZU MORIYAMA
