Both races of the AutoGP World Series at Valencia ended slightly disappointing for the Zele-Racing Team. Whilst young italian Matteo Beretta was taken out of race 1 by another driver with 5 laps to go in race 1, Peter Milavec finished on P15. Beretta had to retire his Lola – Zytek machine with a broken rear suspension and wing. The pile-up and drama was caused by Supernova driver Victor Guerin, who experianced a severe oil-leak on his engine. Several drivers spun off track before the safety car was deployed – unfortunately too late for Beretta.
Matteo Beretta: “ I slowed down because of the slippery track in turn 2 and was suddenly hit by some other car. It ruined my race since i could not continue.“
Peter Milavec:“ In the early stages of the race i was able to hold on to the guys in front of me, but then i ran wide in lap 8 and was not able to keep up the speed. I had my first pitstop in the race and it went reasonably well. I am amazed how reliable and good the AutoGP cars are. This is really impressive.“
Also the second race did not deliver the expected results. The radio on Matteo Berettas car quit the job, which influenced the tire strategy of the Team. With 7 laps to go Matteo was chasing GP2 driver Giancarlo Serenelli, when a problem on the front wing occured – probably caused by contact with one of the curbs. With a now understeery car he was not able to close the gap and gain positions. Peter Milavec meanwhile drove a solid race without mistakes bringing the car home on P16 again. Beretta nursed his Lola home on P13.
Michael Zele:“ Obviousely a quite disappointing weekend for us. We had no big expectations when we came here, but at least we expected to see Matteo in the points in both races. We now have to focus on the Marrakech races in two weeks. It happened now twice that someone crashed into our car, which of course did not happen on purpose, but it´s just frustrating.“
