IAME Euro Series - Winter Cup 2019 - Valencia Feb 7-10, 2019

In practice, although Roy was on the pace which he had shown in Winter Training Camp, it was tricky to match the slipstream speed of the Fusion team who were running in a freight train. Qualifying began badly when Roy’s motor did not fire up, necessitating a panic change of spark plug on the pre‑grid. Although he got up to speed quickly, he received a black & orange flag when the chain guard fell off, presumably the mounting had not been tightened enough. That limited his qualifying to 3 laps, leaving him down in 14^th for all three preliminary races.

 

In Heat 1, starting on the outside saw Roy losing a few places in the first turn. He recovered well and was up to 9^th on the 5^th lap, but lost a couple of places after an ambitious overtaking move on the final lap: however, other drivers’ penalties promoted Roy back up to a promising 9^th place. The start of Heat 2 was also tricky from 14^th on the grid; after dropping a couple of places Roy started climbing up the order, but a dubious move from another driver took them both wide and let other drivers past. That left him down in 16^th across the line, improving to 14^th after penalties. Heat 3 produced more misfortune, after Roy had made a good start an accident between two other drivers led to a red flag and a restart. After the restart there was another accident provoking a slow phase under full course yellow. As the field came round to complete the lap a group of drivers ignored the yellow flags and went barrelling past Roy and some others. The resultant confusion left Roy 23^rd across the line, where he finished after being erroneously given the same penalty as those who had overtaken.

 

The Pre-Final again saw Roy in the familiar grid position of 14^th after the Heat results. He made a good start, but was pushed into a spin on lap 2 and lost 6 places. He battled his way back to cross the line in 14^th, yet again his grid position for the Final. Roy started the Final well and gained a place, then in lap 2 got taken wide and lost 3 places. He took back 2, and went for another overtake as he crossed the line to finish lap 4. Unfortunately the other driver steered into him at full speed, and forced Roy onto the grass at 100km/h, in plain sight of the main stand and the stewards. The other driver got a penalty, but it cost Roy 3 places. Again he battled his way back, and after the penalised other driver took himself out with another driver on the last lap, Roy finished 15^th on the line.

 

Results: IAME Euro Series - Winter Cup 2019 - Valencia Feb 7-10, 2019