Red Bull Ring, 6th July 2015 - Indonesia’s Sean Gelael returns to action in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with the round at Austria’s Red Bull Ring on 10th-12th July.
For 18-year-old Gelael and the Jagonya Ayam with Carlin team the races came thick and fast in the early stages of the season, but there has been almost a month to look forward to and prepare for the races in Austria’s picturesque Steirmark region, where the track follows the contours of the rolling hillside.
The Red Bull Ring, which is the host venue for the Austrian Grand Prix, provides a great challenge for the drivers and engineers. They need strong straight-line speed for the first half of the lap, which consists of three long, flat-out blasts intersected with tight corners, where the driver has to be very careful not to lock up on the brakes. In the second half of the lap, they require a stable, good-handling car for two fast left-handers and then the two very quick right-hand bends that bring the cars back onto the start-finish line.
Sean will therefore be calling on all the expertise of his Jagonya Ayam with Carlin race engineer Marcus Koch, a friendly but hard-working Australian who has spent the past 25 years making young talents from around the world go around the racetracks of Europe as fast as they can!
Gelael will also be calling on his own experience of the Red Bull Ring. He is now halfway through his third season of car racing in Europe, and the Austrian track is one where he put in one of his best performances in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship of 2014. He made up ground from his grid position in all three races, and finished the second race of the weekend in seventh place from 14th on the starting grid, pulling off a host of spectacular overtaking manoeuvres as he worked his way up the order. He finished the weekend with 10th place in the final race, meaning the Red Bull Ring provided a double points-scoring event for Sean.
After scoring his first Formula Renault 3.5 points in Monaco, and then running strongly in the points in the early stages last time out at the Hungaroring, Gelael is very much looking forward to the Red Bull Ring.
“I really like the Red Bull Ring,” says Sean. “I enjoyed driving it in Formula 3 – we had a successful test there before the 2014 season and had a very good weekend there when we went back for the races. This is a track where I feel I can target a big step forward in performance to regularly challenge for points – we have been knocking on the door of points since I scored my first in Monaco, and I feel confident that I can get them this time.” (ms/arl)
