Fairuz Fauzy

Radio interference ends Fairuz’s podium finish dream

SEPANG: Ireland’s Adam Carroll and Switzerland’s Neel Jani will leave Malaysia with happy memories after savouring race wins but it was a miserable day for local hope Fairuz Fauzy, who lost his status as the championship leader after the third leg of the A1 Grand Prix here, yesterday.

A place on the podium was in sight for Fairuz in the feature race when he moved into third place after 10 laps.

But disaster struck for the team when radio interference from another team, who were calling in their driver, resulted in the Malaysian making an unnecessary third pit stop. The team could do nothing but wave him out onto the track.

Fairuz dropped to the back of the field. He pushed hard and managed to overtake the Italian car on the last lap to claim 10th spot. The one point gained was not enough to keep Malaysia in the championship lead, slipping to fifth spot on 29 points - 14 points behind new leaders Ireland.

Fairuz, who had started from second row after qualifying fourth fastest on Saturday, was a disappointed man when explaining what happened to him yesterday.

“Throughout the race, my car was very strong but I just suffered a few handling problems, nothing major though,” he said.

“The team called me in for the first pit stop, it was fine and we went out in the same position again, with the same gap to second-placed Portugal.

“After 10 laps I was struggling with oversteer on the car. I was not sure why, maybe the rear tyres pressure was too high, or the rears had just gone.

“I tried to radio the team, got nothing, and then I heard box this lap, box this lap, and then copy that, then I boxed.

“When I came in, I saw the team was not ready, so I knew something was not right. I just had to carry on, but obviously I was very disappointed.”

Fairuz was gunning for a first-ever podium finish for Malaysia in Sepang.

“Considering we had the extra pit stop, it was a really good recovery to get that one point. I think if we did not had the pit issue, we would have had a podium. After the last pit stop, I was running about a second quicker,” said Fairuz.

He had finished 15th in the sprint race earlier but it was not surprising, considering that he qualified 13th on the grid.

Swiss driver Jani became the fifth different race winner as he won the sprint race comfortably from pole position in 22:41.567. It was the fourth success for Jani at Sepang since the inaugural season in 2005-2006.

“It was a great race. We had very good pace and pit stop, so it was just a perfect race for me,” said Jani.

However, Jani finished empty-handed in the feature race when he came in last after starting from 16th position.

Carroll took the top honours, winning in 1’05:52.205.

Carroll had also won the sprint race in the last round in Chengdu two weeks ago and the Irish team are the first to chalk up two race wins to deservingly head for the next round in New Zealand in two months’ time as the championship leader on 43 points. - thestar.