21/09/09
Portimao
Pastor Maldonado, who qualified in eighth place, was soon up into P6 and fighting strongly for a top points finish, however he suffered brake problems in the second half of the first race and flat spotted his tyres. Things then became even worse for the Venezuelan driver and he lost several positions by the time the race came to a close.

In race two both ART Grand Prix drivers were points contenders when the safety car was called out after the Petrov/Herck accident. However, when it was time for the safety car to come in, it went slowly into the pits and the top six runners were trapped and had no choice but to overtake it before it made it into pit lane. As a result, all six were handed a drive through penalty ending any hope of a decent result.

We looked for a good set-up all weekend long. In qualifying, I came back into the pits to make two adjustments and the car behaviour was better with new tyres, but I was not entirely happy with it. The next adjustments did not go in the right direction: the grip was bad and I had some braking problems. I made a good start and I was 6th after my pit stop. I came out of the pits as fast as possible to try and get past Rodriguez but it made things worse as I locked the wheels and the problem became even worse with heavily used tyres.

Source : ART Grand Prix



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