F1 Academy: Austria, Spielberg, Rd.1

Saturday…

Jessica secures a 3rd place podium finish on her F1 Academy debut.
 
The GSM driver gained ten positions in race one, to eventually finish the opener in fourth place. Shorty afterwards however, Jessica was promoted to P3, thereby completing a very impressive debut!
 
Jessica: I think Race 1 was obviously going to be difficult after what happened in Qualifying, but it was a good race. I was quite lucky that we had a Safety Car that bunched everyone back up again and I could get through. I think if you’d told me before Race 1 that I was going to get P3 I’d have said there was no way that would happen. So overall, I’m happy with how the weekend went!”
 
“The mistake that was made on Friday wasn’t really anyone’s fault it was just one of those things, and it obviously wasn’t a performance enhancing part so we knew that our pace would be the same today as it was yesterday. We knew our pace was good and it was what it was and we bounced back today which is all that matters! I would like to thank @rodincarlin for all there hard work throughout the weekend. I can’t wait for Valencia next week!

Friday…

 Jessica: “Unfortunately, after all 3 of us did a great job in qualifying we have been disqualified. This is unfortunate as the part was not a performance enhancing part. From here we can only go onwards and upwards. I’d like to thank @rodinCarlin for all their hard work to get me to the pace I am now.”

Rodin Carlin’s statement: “Following today’s @f1academy qualifying at Red Bull Ring, all three Rodin Carlin cars have been disqualified from both qualifying sessions. During post-event scrutineering checks, all three cars were found to have a non-homologated part. This part offered no performance gain and had been run by Rodin Carlin and other teams in F4 Championships, but should not have been used on the F1 Academy cars. While no performance gain was made, we wholly accept this decision by the stewards. We sincerely apologise to our three drivers who had done such an incredible job in qualifying. We now look forward as a team and will use this to help drive us through the field tomorrow.”

Photography: F1 Academy, Dutch Photo Agency, Jakob Ebrey, Fotoformulak