EU 2000: Valencia race one notes

A hat-trick for Ammermüller

Michael Ammermüller (Jenzer Motorsport) took his third victory in as many races in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 here today. The German was not about to give Kamui Kobayashi (Prema Power Team) or Romain Grosjean (SG Formula) the slightest chance of breaking his domination.

Ammermüller got off to an impeccable start enabling him to go into turn one ahead of Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi. Behind them in fourth, Yann Clairay (SG Formula) was finding it difficult to hold off Bertrand Baguette (Epsilon Euskadi) who was very aggressive on the first lap.

Walter Grubmüller (Team Jenzer) crashed out on lap two and while Ammermüller pulled away, Kobayashi remained right on Grosjean's exhaust pipes. Meanwhile, Clairay was opening up a gap over Baguette. Further back, the chasing group was headed up by Alan Hellmeister (AR Motorsport) and Adrian Zaugg (Jenzer Motorsport) who had managed to pass Xavier Maasen (JD Motorsport).

Ulric Amado's (Graff Racing) race came to an end when he span out on lap 4. The safety car then had to be called out after a collision involving Sergei Afanasiev (Lukoil Racing Team), Pippa Mann (Comtec Racing), Kasper Andersen (Team Formula Sport) and Pierre Ragues (Epsilon Sport).

Racing resumed on lap 7. Kobayashi pulled out at the end of the start-finish straight to overtake Romain Grosjean in the opening bend. Adrian Zaugg then span his car right in the middle of the field, but the chasing drivers managed to avoid him and the South African was able to rejoin the race unharmed. Nevertheless, the track was clearly very tricky, as Dima Raikhlin (SL Formula Racing) and Dani Clos (Pons Racing) both got into similar trouble at other points on the circuit.

At the front, Ammermüller had meanwhile managed to build himself a lead of over a second over Kobayashi, who had himself opened up a small gap ahead of Grosjean, Clairay and Baguette. Back in 11th, Teemu Nyman (Motopark Oschersleben) then made an error, which let not only Albuquerque, but also Serra, Mailleux, Barber and Del Pino through!

It was the last notable incident of a race which ended in a third victory in three races for Ammermüller.

Michael Ammermüller: "I hope that things will carry on like this for the rest of the season! My team has been superb, no-one has made the slightest error and nothing could be better really. In fact, the situation is ideal for us right now."

Kamui Kobayashi: "Of course its true that I put in some good times in practice, but I just don't know what happened in qualifying. I just seemed to be lacking the edge which I needed to make it onto pole. And during the race it was very hard to overtake as there was a lot of dirt on track off the racing line. The conditions for the second race will be very different and we will be working hard on the settings to improve the car for tomorrow."

Romain Grosjean: "I am totally satisfied to make it onto the podium. Kamui's engine must be something special as there was simply nothing I could do when he attacked me from the restart. After that, I knew that Yann wouldn't try anything suicidal. Teammates simply aren't allowed to do that, are they?!"

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