WEC: Ash Walsh Estoril summary

New car helps Walsh secure more Top 10 results

ASH Walsh has taken another top 10 finish in the latest round of the West European Cup at Estoril, Portugal, today.

Walsh, an AMSF International Rising Star, finished seventh in the second race after crossing the line 15th in Race 1.

The result comes on the back of his maiden top 10 finish at Le Mans two weeks ago. Walsh was also driving a new car too, taking over the Formula Renualt 2.0 car of Hitech Junior team-mate Miki Monras, who left the team prior to the start of the weekend.

Walsh says that the chassis change played an instrumental part in securing this excellent result.

Amongst a healthy pack of 28 cars, Walsh enjoyed two impressive qualifying sessions (12th and ninth), but Walsh's chances at a strong result in Race 1 was destroyed when he stalled on the line. Compared to his regular car, his new car had a different clutch set-up installed, and without any practice starts, Walsh got it wrong.

He quickly got the car going and caught the huge pack, but Walsh affected an illegal move, passing a rival at a yellow flag point.

Walsh was required to do a drive-through penalty, and then was handed another drive-through penalty when he crossed a white line on the exit of pit lane. Race 2 was a lot more straight forward. After finding it hard to get the car off the line again, he dropped to 10th before moving back to ninth, before getting into seventh place during the closing laps.

The next round of the West European Cup will be held next weekend at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium where Walsh will make his racing debut at the famous track.

WALSH ON HIS NEW CAR:

"The car was notably better," he said. "My car had been kind of been neglected this year. I haven't had a full-time mechanic or engineer, so to get this result now is a good effort.

"Straight away, when we back-to-backed the cars, I was sixth-tenths faster per lap.

"And we'd made a significant set-up change as we'll before the weekend, and I had a lot more confidence in the car. It felt really good to me and I think I proved that with the qualifying results."

ON THE ESTORIL CIRCUIT:

"Yeah, Estoril is a really good track," he said.

"It's my sort of circuit - fast corners, big stops. It has a flat out corner onto the back straight. You can really sink your teeth into it."

ON NEXT WEEKEND AT SPA:

"Spa is going to be great next weekend," he said.

"I have a little bit of disadvantage there, as nearly everyone has two days worth of testing, and a race meeting under their belts.

"Hopefully I can get on it pretty quick. I think this new car is going to be a huge advantage for me around there.

"But I can't wait to get there. We have a good level of momentum building now. Two good results in a row, so we'll see where it takes us …"

-credit: aw