The seventh round of the World Championship was far from the expectations of the Brazilian driver
Last Sunday (14) the seventh round of the F2 World Championship came to an end at the Silverstone Racetrack in England. Driving for the DAMS team, the Brazilian driver Sérgio Sette Câmara (YOUSE | BMG | MRV | CCR | CBMM | CEMIG | GASMIG | COPASA) won another 14 points for the Championship and, with that, he goes to Hungary with 121 points and the fourth place in the standings.
Sergio’s weekend was quite different from what he experienced in the previous rounds, in France and Austria, when he took the pole position, won a race and a got a second place.
Despite having the same high-speed characteristics seen on the Red Bull Ring, the DAMS team wasn’t able to make the most out of the car’s performance in free practice when Sette Câmara finished in fifth place. Still on Friday, in the qualifying session, Sérgio made a very quick lap with the first set of tyres and earned the third position. In the second set of tyres, he was coming in an extremely fast lap when in sector three, some kind of safety mode was activated in the car and with that, he could not complete the second fast lap. Even so, with the mark of 1m38s511, he got the third position of the grid for the first race.
The first race was on Saturday. After a good start, Sérgio remained in third, but, under a lot of pressure, he ended up falling to the fourth place. Based on the studies of the DAMS engineers regarding the new asphalt of the racetrack, the driver took a conservative stance in the race, seeking to save the tyres. In this sense, he ended up losing contact with the first three competitors but keeping a safe distance from the fifth place. When he received the OK from the team to accelerate, Sergio was very fast, recorded the fastest lap of the race, but ended up receiving the flag in fourth place.
According to the reverse rule for the starting grid of the sprint race, Sérgio started Sunday’s race in fifth place. Once again the 21-year-old jumped into fourth place on the first corner, but then he was grazed by one of the competitors, left the track and fell to the last position. With a good rhythm, the Brazilian was soon to overcome his opponents. With eight laps completed he was in 12th, pressing the 11th place, the American Juan Manoel Correa. For several laps, Sette tried to overcome the opponent without success. With eight laps to the end, the # 5 car ended up hitting Correa’s and, with that, had his beak broken. Sergio had to go to the pits, change the front of the car and, completely out of the fight, returned to the track only to complete the race and receive the flag in 17th place.
“It was a weekend where we made 50% of the points we expected. In the first race we bet on the degradation of the tyres, which did not happen and with that, I lost the chance to fight for a place on the podium. In the second race, unfortunately, everything went wrong. I was put out on the first lap. I came back in a good rhythm, recovering, and I think I would have ended up in the scoring zone (Top 8), but unfortunately, my competitor was quite disloyal, changed direction several times and, unintentionally, we ended up hitting each other. I still have to raise my head and keep preparing for the race in Hungary, two weeks from now,” concluded the driver.
Photo: Dutch Photo Agency | Publicity