Barwa Addax team get back on the podium at Silverstone

Rio Haryanto finished in second place of the second race of the GP2 Series, which took place at the Silverstone circuit this weekend. Barwa Addax Team climbs on to the podium with this result for the first time in the present campaign. Jake Rosenzweig was severely affected by rear tyre failure.

Rio Haryanto

Photo by: XPB Images

In what has been a weekend of steady progress, Rio set the 13th fastest lap time in free practice but improved considerably in a complicated qualifying session due to the rain that started to fall after only six minutes into the stint.

Haryanto was up there with the best and posted the 7th fastest lap time but it could have been even better as he drove superbly in very wet conditions. He drove a good first race climbing positions from 16th, the position he was in after his early pit stop.

He was working to pick up some good points and be in a prime position for Sunday’s second shorter sprint race. On Sunday his job was to defend his second place on the starting grid.

However, he skidded a lot at the start from the dirtier side of the track but was courageously able to fight off any attacks at the first few corners and he steadily began to get into a perfect race rhythm creating a healthy gap to his most immediate rivals. He made no mistakes and came home in second position.

Jake Rosenzweig, had a great weekend at Silverstone, even more so when you consider he is a rookie in this class. In free practice he finished mid table for the times set, working really well with the new set up on his car that the team prepared for him for very wet conditions.

In what were difficult conditions in qualification, he was surprised by the rain without having been able to put in a fast lap time beforehand, which meant he was relegated to the back of the field. He made a great fight back from his back marker position and finished in a fantastic 14th position.

He overtook almost half the field despite being held up for a long time by Berthon. Once he was able to pass him he showed that he had a lot more race rhythm and could have even finished higher up at the end of the race. The American driver was very motivated for the second race but a driver hit him from behind at the first corner incident which left the car and one of his tyres damaged.

He kept going and was fighting it out with other rivals until he had a tyre blowout, forcing him to box and change the affected tyre. As the team checked the damage to the car he lost two laps and was unable to make further progress.

Barwa Addax Team is very satisfied with the weekend’s work at the British circuit, having made podium once more to demonstrate that the team is still one of the most competitive in the GP2 Series. Rio Haryanto has climbed a lot of positions in the overall driver’s classification in what has been his first reasonable weekend, without the regular misfortune.

The team and drivers are confident that this could be a turning point to the season and that together they can find the right formula to put them where they belong. Jake Rosenzweig, is having a good season and is performing very well at times showing that he is adapting very well to the category with signs of talent that compensate for the bad luck he has had more than once this season.

This coming weekend they will all have the opportunity to confirm this weekend’s progress at the Nurburgring circuit in Germany as part of the German Formula 1 GP event.

Barwa Addax