Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Infinity Drivers delight with more podiums and points

The latest rounds of racing action provided another stellar weekend for the Infinity Sports Management drivers, racking up a total of five podiums across two championships as the 2019 motorsports season draws to a close.

EuroFormula Open – Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit

Nicolai Kjærgaard
After a solid 2019 campaign, Nicolai’s year got a little bit sweeter as he made another two trips to the rostrum at the weekend as the EuroFormula Open Championship travelled to Barcelona for the penultimate round of the year.

The rain on Saturday forced qualifying to be cancelled, but the first race of the weekend still went ahead later that afternoon. Having topped the timesheets of Friday afternoon’s practice session, Nicolai lined up second on the grid with team-mate Billy Monger on pole.

Nicolai was able to control the majority of the first race, immediately overtaking Billy and producing a gap between him and Linus Lundqvist who had also got past his team-mate.

On the last lap, Nicolai was still in the lead but had to surrender to a charging Liam Lawson. Despite the overtake, Nicolai crossed the line second to mark his fourth podium of the season.

On Sunday, Nicolai qualified second and once again drove a mature race to claim his second podium of the weekend by finishing 2nd and take his fourth piece of silverware in as many races.

Nicolai commented:

“Carlin gave me a mega car this weekend and I am super happy with my performance,”
“The season is almost over and now I go to Monza with the podiums to give me a boost. Let’s end the year on a high!”

Ahead of the finale in Monza, Nicolai lies sixth in the championship standings on 99 points.

Linus Lundqvist
After a tough outing at Silverstone, Linus Lundqvist returned to the podium in Barcelona, finishing third in the first race of the weekend. In addition, Linus yielded another top-10 finish on Sunday, taking his weekend total to 21 points.

The Swedish driver overtook Billy Monger in the opening stages of the rather damp first race to improve on his starting position.

Then, running in second for the majority of the race, Linus was passed by Liam Lawson which dropped him to third position.

Linus then spent the last few laps defending from Christian Hahn. Not putting a foot wrong, Linus crossed the line third and, more importantly, four tenths clear of the Brazilian.

On Sunday, Linus qualified P7 - merely half a second off the pole sitter's time.

Unfortunately, Linus had a slow getaway from the line and he lost his positions. Nonetheless, he still crossed the line in eighth to mark the end of a very positive weekend. Linus said:

“I will definitely take the P3 we had on Saturday! The team gave me a great car and it felt good in the tricky conditions that we had. I kept my head down and stuck the car to the track to bring a trophy home for the team.”

Moving on to Monza, Linus is fourth in the championship on 122 points.

Formula Regional – Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit

Dan Ticktum
On his Formula Regional debut, Dan Ticktum drew on all of his previous racing experience to claim two podiums at Montmelo.

After qualifying sixth in the first qualifying session and improving to fourth in the second outing, Dan was in a good place for some solid points heading into the first race.

In race one, Dan made a fantastic comeback to take his first ever Formula Regional podium when he finished P2, only 1.8 seconds behind race-leader Frederik Vesti.

In race two, Dan scored further points by notching up a P5 finish. This left Dan hungry for more success in the third and final race of the weekend. Starting from fourth position, Dan improved on his result and crossed the line second - once again he was less than two seconds behind the race winner.

Olli Caldwell
Olli endured a challenging weekend at Montmelo, finishing seventh, sixth and fourth in the races.

After an unlucky race one, Olli was able to improve on his result by one place for race two. The third and final race of the weekend produced his best result, and the British driver narrowly missed out on a podium.

Despite not collecting any silverware, the 17-year-old is still very much in the hunt for third in the drivers’ championship with six races left on the calendar.

After the weekend, Olli said:

“It was very much a mixed weekend for us and we missed out on some good opportunities. After an unlucky race one, we bounced back and got some solid points in the other two races. Now, we focus on the next round and getting that third in the championship. It is going to be tight, but I am ready to battle!”

Harry Soden, director of Infinity Sports Management, praised all their drivers perfromance:

“All of the ISM boys did a great job across the weekend. They won plenty of trophies, took home good points and put themselves in strong positions for the final races of the season. It was also great to see Dan back on the podium after a difficult few months.”