The EuroFormula Open enjoyed its inaugural visit to Austria as it raced at the Red Bull Ring, home of the Austrian Grand Prix, for the first time on the first weekend in July.
With both Yarin Stern and Tanart Sathienthirakul showing well at the front during Free Practice, they qualified second and fourth for both races in what were incredibly close qualifying sessions, where Yarin was only seven thousandths of a second off pole position in qualifying two with Tanart only four hundredths of a second away in fourth!
For race one, Yarin made a decent start but was delayed by cars running wide to run third for most of the race but Tanart fared much worse, stuttering off the line to be stone last - from where he launched a stunning comeback drive.
While Yarin was battling away up front Tanart was able to scythe through the field, flying past car after car. With the front three having settled into a stalemate, Tanart was able to join in and made a clean pass on Yarin, who was running out of tyre life near the end. So, Tanart made a welcome return to the podium with Yarin in a competitive fourth place.
For Sunday's race two, both drivers this time made good starts - Yarin not being quite able to take the lead at turn one. The lead battle raged for the whole 19 lap race with Yarin, try as he might, never quite close enough to make a move for the lead , and equally holding back the third place finisher as the top six cars circulated in very close order. Tanart was also very much part of the battle before coming home sixth to cement his current fourth place in the title race.
The EuroFormula Open now has its annual summer break, before resuming with weekends at Spa, Monza and Barcelona as the 2015 series reaches its exciting conclusion.
Yarin Stern: Another great qualifying - 2nd again but just by 0.007 of a second! P2 in what was a difficult race due to the very high temperatures.
John Miller, Motul Team West-Tec: Both drivers did a really good job with Yarin equalling his best result to date again, and Tanart showing a superb comeback on Saturday to excite the crowd.
Both are knocking on the door of wins and we will be continuing to work very hard to get there after the summer break. With Spa, Monza and Barcelona to come these are all great tracks that the drivers love and we have won at each before so I am looking forward to a good end to the season.
One of the most successful teams in the history of the EuroFormula / European Formula 3 Open, Team West-Tec enjoys team support from Motul, Nielsen Chemicals, B-G Racing, Eibach, MIS Locktons, Mechanix and Freem GB.
