|
 |
| July 11, 2012 |
| Renault 2.0 NEC: Shahaan Takes Season Best Seventh at Oschersleben |
 | Shahaan Engineer secured three Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup top-10s at Oschersleben
(Photo: Chris Schotanus - Essay Produkties) |
GERMANY (July 8, 2012) - Fortec Motorsports racer Shahaan Engineer rocketed back into the top-10 of the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup driver standings at Oschersleben in Germany over the weekend, July 7th/8th, after securing ninth, eighth, and seventh place finishes in the latest three rounds of the season.
The rapid Indian 16 year-old, who is in only his first full season of car racing and is the youngest driver in the championship, delivered a consistently competitive series of performances throughout the event to surge from 17th in the points table to 10th – just nine points outside the top eight.
Seventh place in the third and final race of the weekend, round eight, on Sunday morning marked Engineer’s best finish of the 2012 campaign so far. He also confirmed his front-running pace with the sixth fastest lap of the encounter, a time of 1:28.034 seconds just 0.4 seconds shy of the best of all.
“It’s been a fantastic weekend,” said the Dubai-based teenager. “I learned a lot with racecraft and speed, improving my result in each race, but most importantly for me I was consistent and finished all three races.
“I’ve gained some good track time this weekend at Oschersleben, which is what I need as I haven’t had much testing in Europe compared to the others, as I’ve been studying hard for my GCSEs and have only just finished them.”
Starting the weekend well in practice, where he posted the sixth fastest time in the second of the two sessions, Engineer continued his front-running consistency in qualifying where he set a best of 1:28.505 seconds (150.33 km/h) to take eighth on the grid for round six. In the second run, he set a fastest lap of 1:27.676 seconds (151.75 km/h) to secure 10th on the grid for round seven.
All three races went very well for the young Indian on a strong return to action, especially when considering he has spent the past nine weeks focusing on his hugely important GCSE exams ahead of a move to the UK in September, where he will begin further education.
Last time out at the Nurburgring in Germany, Engineer was caught-up in an extremely dangerous incident not of his making which set the tone for a weekend in which he scored zero points. Even with that troublesome event hampering his championship tally, the teenage rookie has bounced back brilliantly to return to the top 10 in the standings from a total of 51 registered drivers.
“Being the youngest in a field of much more experienced drivers, Shahaan needs as many racing miles as he can get and needs to keep improving as much as possible,” reflected Fortec driver coach Matt Howson said. “He’s done a good job, this weekend was a great learning curve for him.”
Assen in The Netherlands will host the fourth race meeting of the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup season four weeks from now over the weekend August 4th/5th.
Keep up-to-date with Shahaan’s progress throughout the year at http://www.shahaan.com follow him on Twitter @ShahaanEngineer and also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ShahaanEngineer
Learn more at http://www.shahaan.com / Twitter @ShahaanEngineer / http://www.facebook.com/ShahaanEngineer |
|
|
|
Go Top
|
|
|
|
|
