Our leading single-seater driver, Jazeman Jaafar, has made significant progress in the Formula Renault 3.5 as he scored his second successive podium at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. In the two race weekend, he scored third in the first race and finished the second race on six. So with the “Jalur Germilang” waved twice on podiums at Monaco and Spa, the PETRONAS development driver’s progress is indeed impressive.
Qualifying was tough for the 21 year old as he finished at 14th place for the first race on Saturday. As the lights turned green, he made a good exit from the legendary Eau Rouge section which put him in the right place to overtake two cars towards the next long straight. A big crash occurred in the first lap, taking out a few drivers including Sauber F1’s test driver, Sergey Sirotkin. Jazeman narrowly avoided the crash and managed to improve his track position during the safety car period to clear off the earlier crash.
When the race went back to normal, Jazeman continued his resurgence at Spa, overtook the two drivers who finished better than him on the last race in Monaco, Marco Sorensen and Norman Nato towards fourth. He finally clinched the third position from Matias Laine during the penultimate lap to claim an impressive third place podium from 14th.
Armed with confidence from the first race, Jazeman qualified well for the second race on Sunday at fifth. However, his start was somehow ruined by the first lap accident from Sergey Sirotkin and Pietro Fantin, prompting him to take evasive action, dropping him further at the back. He fought back and finish the race on sixth. Right now he is sixth overall in the driver’s standing, with Carlos Sainz Jr leading the standings, with 78 points ahead of Jazeman.
The joyous Jazeman said “I’m really pleased with these two results. We had to work very hard to achieve these results, but persistence pays off. I wouldn’t have predicted a podium finish from starting 14th on Saturday, but holding your nerve, fearless driving and being able to put the power down when we needed to, produced a great result”
His comments on Sunday’s race “Yesterday’s drive to sixth was also good, especially as I so nearly got caught up in the incident between Pietro and Sergey, which would probably have ended my race. But I did get held up by these two, so lost ground to the front runners and didn’t have the pace of Saturday to be able to catch them.”
“We still have some work to do to improve the car,” adds Jazeman, “but we’re heading in the right direction and now starting to show the level of performance which I know is achievable. After two races in a row it’s a shame I have to wait three weeks now – I’m itching to continue with the work and keep developing the car.”
The next race will be in Moscow, Russia in three weeks time. Let’s hope he will raise the Malaysian flag at Moscow as well!
[Source: Jazeman.com]
