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The Press Conference from Round 05 - Spain
World Trophy
Saturday, 01 May 2010 01:12

Welcome to the Press Conference for Round 5, The Spanish Grand Prix.

Third, for DHR Simcraft; Muhammed Patel, Second, for DHR Simcraft; Ivan Kalyanov, and first, for Precision Motorsports; Allar Foht.

Q: Congratulations Allar for the win, how did your race go?
A: Thank you, race was superb, first win this year, I am very happy with the result. Hopefully this race opened the winning strike for me. Also I want to thank all the team members, management for the hard work they have done, to make these results possible.

Q: Over the winter did you have to change your driving style to suit the new regulations?
A: Well, not really. At the beginning I was a bit afraid about the new car, no refuelling and so on, but mostly there haven't been any big problems for me.

Q: We still have a long season remaining. What are your aims coming to the end of the season?
A: Mainly to win championship of course. So far my team mate Pedro has definitely done a fantastic job and it will be a hard task to beat him and also other teams which are coming up strongly.
But really the season is long and we will have to wait and see, anything is possible.

Q: Ivan, How did your race go?
A: My race was pretty normal this time round. The only real action that happened was at the start and the first couple of laps. At the start, I was able to hold my position in second place behind my teammate. Allar Foht was quite a bit quicker on that first lap and had amazing straight line speed. As a result, he was able to pass me heading into turn 1 on lap 2. After that, I pretty much just had to watch the battle between Foht and my teammate unfold. Pretty soon, Foht got passed Patel and started to pull away quite quickly. I knew that if I wanted any shot at the win, I had to pass my teammate now and try to catch up to Foht. Around lap 14, my teammate made a slight error on the exit of Campsa which allowed me to get past, but it was too little, too late, as Foht already
had a 6 second gap on me. He pitted one lap before me in the pits and I lost more time in the pit stops, meaning the gap had increased to about 8 seconds. After that, I tried as much as possible to try and whittle that gap down, but he was still about a tenth a lap quicker than me. When there were 10 laps to go and the gap was 9 seconds, I
decided that at this point I should bring it home, and that is exactly what I did. I finished second today, which I am very happy about. My teammate finished right behind me in third, so there are celebrations to go around for
the whole team. We knew we had to start chipping away at Precision's point lead, and this is the beginning of the DHR SimCraft resurgence!

Q: DHR GP surely have made a step forward in Spain. Do you think you and the team have what it takes to match the Precisions at Monte-Carlo?
A: I think we have certainly improved the car further, but I think so have other teams as well. I think we are finally back to where we were at the start of the season, where we can match Precision's pace. I think this advantage will carry over to Monaco where the goal will be to win the race and bring the cars home in a 1-2 finish for maximum points.

Q: 5 rounds have already flew by, being 106 points behind the leader do you think you think you could close it down come the end of the season?
A: It has only been 5 rounds, so that means that there are 13 still to go. I think that it is still very possible to close up that 106 point lead by the end of the season. It is a long season, and there are still many things that could happen. We are just going to have to do the best job that we can in the next couple of rounds and see where that gets us.

Q: Muhammed, how did your race go?
A: Taking my first pole of the season was great, and the start was good. From the start it was noticeable Foht was faster than me, and I wasn't able to hold him off. While he pulled away I tried to hold off Ivan and the following pack. But a mistake at the Campsa corner dropped me to third. From then on it was about keeping Lawal and Melim behind me, having some issues with a few back-markers losing me like 2 seconds in the final stint made my job harder. Luckily Lawal didn't have the straight line speed Foht had and I held on for third.

Q: Are you disappointed with third?
A: It could have been fourth, it could have been fifth. But to be honest on the Circuit de Catalunya, a place I have a bad record at and a place I don't like driving on, third was the best I could have done. And second and third was fantastic for the team to close the gap to the Precisions.

What will the Streets of Monaco bring us? A surprise winner? Or will it be Precision dominated?
Tune into the multibc broadcast by going to www.formula-simracing.net/live-broadcast at 11:40GMT on 05.02.2010 for the FSR World Trophy Monaco Grand Prix.