Brazilian driver was battling for the third place when he saw the engine of his car on fire.
This weekend the F2 World Championship arrived in England for the seventh double round of the season. The home race for the Carlin team began in a disastrous way for Sérgio Sette Câmara (YOUSE | Banco BMG | MRV | CCR | CEMIG | GASMIG | Usiminas). Six laps to the end of Saturday’s race, when he was fighting for the third place, his engine exploded and started catching fire.
Sérgiohad started the weekend in Silverstone in a quiet way. In the free practice session held Friday morning, the driver and team made adjustments in some details of the car and, at the end of the session, the Brazilian driver was in seventh place. In the qualifying session, carried out a few hours later, there was a great similarity between the main pilots of the Championship. With 1m40s234, Sette secured the fifth position of the starting grid, however, only two-tenths of a second from the pole position.
As in the Austrian races last week, today’s race started with a rolling safety car. Sergio remained in the fifth position and, in the first few laps, he was doing his best to defend it. With seven laps completed he was called to the pit-stop. In a perfect pit done by the team, the driver returned to the track and, from then on, began to impose a very strong rhythm.
With 15 laps completed, he was faster than the Swiss Louis Deletraz, and overtook him from the outside taking the fourth position. He carried on very fast and it was not long before he got close to Antonio Fuoco who was the in third. Sette put a lot of pressure on the Italian driver and was clearly studying the best point for overtaking. Suddenly his car started blowing smoke, evidencing an engine problem. Sérgio pulled out to the run-off area and the engine was already on fire so he had to leave the race.
“I’m very disappointed with this, it’s been a frustrating day. Our car was fast and I was fighting for third place but, fourth place was not bad. My direct competitors scored many points. I believe the team was not to blame for this problem since all the engines are provided by the organization. Unfortunately, the technical issues have been a big problem this season. Several drivers have had electronic, engine and especially clutch problems. The latter is the reason why we are having a rolling start. I really hope that the organizers use these next three weeks to solve these problems once and for all and we can have a championship marked by the competence of each racer on the track and not by the luck of being able to finish the race, “said Sergio.
On Sunday, the second race of the weekend will be broadcast live on FoxSports2 at 5:20 am. Sportv2 will also show the race, at an alternative time, at 8:35 in the morning.