Voices from the podium of Race 1 in Navarra

Rain and wind on the track, two Safety Cars in action (and the second one ended the race prematurely for safety reasons), several duels and a lot of emotions. The first day of the Ferrari Challenge UK, held at the Navarra circuit in Spain, goes into the archives. Below the podium the protagonists of the two categories, Trofeo Pirelli and Coppa Shell, commented on their performances.

Gilbert Yates (Charles Hurst), Trofeo Pirelli winner:

Pranav Vangala (HR Owen), second in the Trofeo Pirelli: “I managed to get a jump off the line, but into turn 1 I looked in my mirror and I could see Gilbert Yates was still half a car length alongside me. You always leave space for that kind of thing so he went through on the inside and I just tried to fall in quickly behind him. I’m very happy and grateful to be here. Last season finished well, and this season I was hoping to get off to a strong start and that seems to have been what has happened so I can't complain. Difficult conditions with the weather and having to finish on the safety car, but I feel like I was able to give Gilbert a better battle that what I did last season and that's positive progress”.

Oscar Ryndniewicz (Graypaul Glasgow), third in the Trofeo Pirelli: “It went great! A good start and kept up with the two guys at the front to start with. I could see a few errors where perhaps they were getting more room on the outside. Didn’t know if they would hit track limits and get a penalty, so this is something we will look at for the race tomorrow. Callum (Leathem) came up behind me out of nowhere, my coach Giovanni advised me to let him waste his tyres. The other guys were too far ahead, so we just played around a little bit and, as we got towards the end, off we went. A really good race, and Callum did really well. I’m very happy!”.

Paul Simmerson (Graypaul Birmingham) Coppa Shell winner:

Mike Dewhirst (Dick Lovett Swindon), second in the Coppa Shell: “So the start was a bit tricky. There's a lot of chopping and changing after the start line. Whoever was in front of it braked halfway down the straight which meant that everyone just flew past on the inside so I dropped quite a lot of places at the start. Then it's quite hectic - a lot of cars all over the place for the first few laps. Managed to get past one after a couple of laps, closed in on Peter (Hunter), he's a bit cagey. Took me a few laps and then managed to get him into the little hairpin at the bottom so I think all in all reasonable, but it would be nice to have a better start then not leave myself so much work to do. We just ran out of time”. 

Peter Hunter (Stratstone Manchester), third in the Coppa Shell: “Great battle with Paul Simmerson - but the guy is just too quick! I got a good launch and then took P1, then me and Simmerson battled for quite a while. I conceded because I thought I’m fine with him getting first. I’ll get second as I like to chase people down. Right at the last, my tyres were going with degradation, so I started to slide out. Dewhirst came in, undercut me and took a beautiful line. Then he went out, I undercut him, and then he went to push me out - which is fine, it's racing - but I conceded because I want to save my car for tomorrow. So, I’m happy with third, it was great!”.