JK Racing Asia Series: Aditya Patel finishes sixth at Spa

Spa-Francorchamps - Aditya Patel finished a respectable sixth in the opening race of Round 7 of the JK Racing Asia Series at the prestigious Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

“It wasn’t too bad when it ended but when it started I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time in the first two laps so I went from fifth to sixth, sixth to seventh, seventh to eighth and eighth to ninth, I was just always in the wrong place I guess.

“After about four laps, I started to get my way back up so I got up to sixth and yeah, by the last lap I was up to sixth and kept it there.

As for the race tomorrow, he said “I knew where I was gaining time and I knew where I was losing time so tomorrow I will have to work on the places where I am losing time and try to make it up” he ended.

Eurointernational made it a clean sweep of the podium with Nabil Jeffri, Irfan Ilyas and Aston Hare. Jeffri made a spectacular pole to flag win completing eight laps of the Belgian circuit clocking a best time of 2:32.406.

“First of all I would like to thank the team, they did a very good job with the car and I cant ask for anything better than that from them. The car was a lot better than yesterday, the setup was a lot better and what we wanted to improve, we did in race one, so I am very happy with the car.

Winning in Spa is very prestigious, like I said when we were in Paul Ricard, winning here is not just a normal win for me. I am not the first Malaysian but I am the first Malaysian to win in Spa for JK Racing Asia Series.”

“Throughout the race I just maintained my pace, even though I wasn’t the fastest but I think I had a very good pace and I clocked the same time for every single lap. For me the key is consistency and I did quite well in being very consistent,” said an elated Jeffri at the post race press conference.

Hare started the race in third but lost a few places at the start and had to make up several more places throughout the race. He clocked the fastest lap of the day with 2:32.194 at an average speed of 165.7km/h. Towards the end he caught up to his teammate, Ilyas and managed to overtake him in the early part of the last lap before Ilyas regained second on the last turn.

“For me, when I watched all the previous races in F1, Spa is really different from the other circuits, the lights go off really fast. So when I saw the five second board I was thinking just concentrate on the lights.

“The car setup was really good throughout the race. In the last three laps I had a lot of understeer because I was behind Nabil that’s why I think I lost a lot of time which is why Aston caught me up.”

“I’d like to thank Eurointernational for doing a good job. We are all in the top three in qualifying, practice and for the race especially. Its really good and we are hoping for the same outcome tomorrow,” ended Ilyas.