Spa, Belgia, 23 August 2015 - Indonesia’s Sean Gelael was left disappointed after his second outing in the GP2 Series at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, where he showed extremely good speed in the first race but was left with a poor result in a race that turned into a lottery.
The 18-year-old was enjoying a big battle in the early stages of the Belgian Grand Prix-supporting race with Red Bull Junior Pierre Gasly, Nathanael Berthon, Nick Yelloly and Richie Stanaway, all of whom have had good results in the past in GP2, when there was an enormous accident right in front of him in which Dutchman Daniel de Jong slammed into the tyre barriers at high speed.
The race went under the safety car, and drivers including Berthon and Gustav Malja, who was running behind Sean’s battle at the time, all took the opportunity to take their mandatory pit stop and change from their soft tyres to the hard rubber. Unfortunately, Gelael and some other drivers had taken the decision to start the race on hard Pirellis, and it was too early to change onto the soft tyres as they would not last until the end of the race.
When it became clear that de Jong’s accident would take a long time to clear up the race was stopped. When it restarted, Sean’s Jagonya Ayam-liveried Carlin car had no chance of a good result, but still he showed good pace. After switching to his soft tyres, he set the eighth-fastest lap of the race, with a time that was quicker than the best recorded by race winner Stoffel Vandoorne!
Frustratingly, Gelael’s early-race rival Berthon went on to finish seventh, while Malja took 10th position, both scoring points and proving what might have been for Sean had he been on a different strategy.
Gelael’s disappointing result meant he started Sunday’s race from well down the grid, and both Carlin cars – Sean’s and his team-mate Julian Leal’s – struggled for speed in this race, leading to a frustrating finish to the weekend.
“I am not in a good mood!” said Gelael. “We went for the hard tyre to start Saturday’s race and that strategy did not pay off. I made a good start from the back of the grid and straight away I was fighting for P16. It was a good fight, and even when they passed me I had the pace to pass them back, and everything was fine. But in the end we could not do it because we were so unlucky with the safety car, the red flag and the strategy.
“In today’s race I again made a good start and again I was fighting for around P15 and P16, but we just did not have the pace this time and I was slowing more and more. We tried something in the car and I was just lacking a lot of grip and losing, losing until we ended up nowhere.
“I was encouraged by the pace in Saturday’s race, but Sunday showed that we need to find something, and the difficult thing is because I am so new to GP2 I do not know whether it’s my fault, whereas if I know the car is good then I know that the important thing is for me to improve and focus on my driving. My team-mate struggled a lot as well so we just need to put this one down to experience and look forward to the next race.”
Sean will miss the next GP2 round at Monza as it clashes with the Formula Renault 3.5 Series event at Silverstone in England, where he will rejoin the Jagonya Ayam with Carlin team on the 4th-6th September in his bid for more points. (ms/arl)
