Speedcar Series Bahrain: Race 1

Johnny Herbert scored a dominant win in the penultimate round of the Speedcar Series on Saturday morning in Bahrain, while Tonio scored a podium when he finished 3rd. After a good start Tonio began to pressure Frentzen. However as the Italian crossed the line at the end of the fourth lap, Alesi suffered a spectacular engine failure, and pulled over to park next to the pit wall.

Having avoided the slowing Alesi, just seconds later Tonio took a dive down the inside of Frentzen into turn 1. The two cars rubbed paintwork as they entered the corner side-by-side, but Tonio locked up, and sailed straight on. He didn’t lose too much time, and was soon pushing the German once again for what had now become second place. Finally, the gap between Tonio and Frentzen was less then 2,5 seconds at the finish line.

Tonio commented: “I was eventually able to move to 3rd spot and clinch a podium finish. Johnny Herbert was really unstoppable out front, but I battled Heinz-Harald for 2nd. We even passed each other a couple of times, but unfortunately, differential problems made exiting corners very difficult, and I had to settle for the final podium spot.Since our chances to fight for title were already washed away in the past races by technical problems, I’ll start Race 2 with the intent of moving to 4th place in standings.”

Tonio is now 5th in the standings with 35 points and 16 points behind leader Gianni Morbidelli. With only one race to go, the title can still be won by Frentzen, Herbert and Morbidelli. It’s going to be a hot and intense race tomorrow in Bahrain!