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What had started as a rather tough weekend for the Chevrolet World Touring
Car Championship team had a sort of happy ending when Alain Menu netted a
single point in the second of the two Oschersleben races. The Swiss driver
used his years of touring car experience to avoid incidents and accidents
and ran a competitive second race to eighth. Team mates, Rob Huff and Nicola
Larini suffered in the first race, but both made remarkable recoveries to
11th and 12th in the second.
Having qualified quickest Chevrolet, Alain Menu ran a competitive first race
to 11th, despite a last-corner incident. "Zanardi made a move on Farfus and
forced him to run wide. When Farfus came back on the track, I was already
beside him, but he came back more than he should have and took my front
left corner off." Instead of finishing ninth, Menu had to settle for 11th,
limping across the finish line. His second race, however, had a much happier
end. "I had a good second race," Menu said. "It was good to be in the fight
with the other factory drivers, rather than having to race with the privateers
as we often had to do in the beginning of the season."
Rob Huff ran as high as 16th in the first race, until he got hit from behind.
"It was a very difficult first race," he said. "The car was understeering
everywhere and bouncing around a lot after I had been hit. After the race
we discovered the rear roll bar was broken as result of the incident, which
explained my 23rd position." In race two, Huff was far more competitive.
"I had a good clean start and made up at least six places in the first two
corners when other drivers took each other off. The car was much better as
well. After this morning's warm up, we added some toe-in to the rear wheels,
and took some out again for the second race. As a result the tyres were very
good and consistent throughout the race, with a lot less understeer, allowing
me to pick off the cars in front one by one."
Nicola Larini lost his front splitter in the beginning of the first race,
dropping him down the order to 17th at the finish. In the second race, he
was right up there with Menu. "It makes a lot of difference to drive with
or without a splitter," he said. "I had a good start and was clever enough
to avoid the spinning cars in front of me. The car was very good in the
middle part of the race, which was when I tried to pass Alain. But I was
on the dirty side of the track and went off, and lost a place. After that
the car was not as good as before so I can be happy to finish 11th."
The next races for the 2005 World Touring car Championship are on 18th
September at the Otodrom of Istanbul in Turkey.
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