Sean Walkinshaw enjoyed his most competitive weekend of the EuroFormula Open season by securing points in both races at Jerez. The 20-year-old Briton, who drives for Campos Racing, finished tenth in race one on Saturday after qualifying a season high sixth, and followed that up with seventh in race two around the Spanish track.
“There are lots of positives to take away from Jerez,” said Walkinshaw. “Two points finishes, the first time this year we’ve done that, and our best qualifying yet shows the progress we’re making. We’ve made good steps forward, especially with the qualifying pace, and the car was good all weekend. I’m happy to have been in the points in both races – hopefully we can take that on to the next round.”
A technical issue affected Walkinshaw’s pace during the opening race that resulted him losing positions from his grid slot, but he held on just enough to take the final point for tenth. His race two was much stronger, starting from eleventh he able to rise to seventh at the flag, finishing over four seconds clear of eighth placed Wei Fung Thong of Team West-Tec F3.
“This weekend did have some bad points as well as good ones, but overall it’s been our strongest performance yet this year,” reflected the Briton. “Qualifying sixth on the grid for race one was great and we should have been there again for race two, but I got traffic in second qualifying when I was half a second up so that cost us quite badly.
“The technical issue in race one was unfortunate, it was a struggle so I was pretty happy actually to finish P10. Sunday’s race was good and although my start wasn’t brilliant, the first couple of laps were great. After I got up into seventh it was quite a calm race, I just had to be consistent, look after the tyres and bring it home.”
Walkinshaw will hope to build on his first double points finish of the season when the EuroFormula Open season resumes at the Hungaroring in Hungary on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of July 2014.
