Gelael makes strong recovery in Macau

Macau, 17th November 2014 - Indonesia’s Sean Gelael finished 15th in the Macau Grand Prix after recovering from a crash that ruined his chances of a good result.

Gelael had qualified 13th for the qualification race, but unfortunately he was taken out on the first lap. Antonio Giovinazzi, Sean’s team-mate in the Jagonya Ayam with Carlin team, got serious damage when he was hit by another car, and he was powerless afterwards to avoid his car swerving into Sean’s.

That caused damage to Gelael’s high-tech Dallara-Volkswagen racer and he was forced to pit for repairs. After rejoining, he then crashed at Fisherman’s Bend when he lost downforce running close to another car.

Sadly, this meant Sean had to start the Grand Prix itself from 25th on the grid, and again he sustained damage on the first lap when there was an enormous chain-reaction pile-up. This meant that the race was stopped, and the Jagonya Ayam with Carlin mechanics set to work replacing Gelael’s front wing.

At the restart, he did a superb job to climb from 25th to 15th. Once he was in clear air, he set his fastest lap times of the race, and was one of the quickest drivers on the track in the closing stages. Sean’s best lap was three tenths of a second faster than the driver who finished eighth, indicating that a top-10 result was definitely possible.

The weekend had started in fine style, with Gelael being 10th fastest in the opening free practice session, and then 12th in first qualifying. Eighteen-year-old Sean was definitely in the mix for the Macau Grand Prix, the most prestigious race in the junior motorsport calendar, but this race also has a habit of throwing out nasty surprises!

“It’s been frustrating,” said Gelael. “Qualifying 13th was annoying because the car balance at the start was really bad. I made a couple of mistakes and brushed the wall a bit on my front left. So we pitted and put another set of tyres on, and the speed was good. On my first lap I got traffic but that was already three tenths quicker than the lap before. Then I was on a lap that was another three tenths faster before Alex Palou crashed right in front of me, and that caused yellow flags and then red flags. Without that I could have qualified 10th and maybe avoided the accident with Antonio in the race…

“I had a really good start off the line in the qualification race. I was side by side with Stefano Coletti, but last year I crashed at the Mandarin Oriental kink, so I was taking it easy there. Then I was side by side with Will Buller and I saw him red hot, so I went wide, and Buller and Coletti crashed. Then I tried to go inside but Antonio came across. We could have finished ninth or 10th because our pace was really good.

“That was proved in the final. It was so frustrating having to fight through from the back, and it was difficult to overtake the guys without taking too much risk. I was pretty close to Buller by the finish and he had quite a few guys in front of him who were much slower, so another few laps and we could have got in the top 10. But that’s Macau for you!”

Of Sean’s fellow Jagonya Ayam with Carlin drivers, Giovinazzi finished in 12th place, while Tom Blomqvist was third in the qualification race but was eliminated in a crash in the final. (ms/arl)

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