Emil Frey Racing: Hope for points in Valencia
IT CAN ONLY GET BETTER After the bitter setbacks at the last Sprint Cup of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS at the Hockenheimring, Emil Frey Racing goes into the fourth round full of confidence.
The highly competitive GT3 championship makes a guest appearance this time in Valencia, Spain, and the Swiss team is aiming for consistent points results. As usual, the Circuit Ricardo Tormo will host two one-hour races on both Saturday and Sunday with a strong field of 40 cars. Since its debut on the race calendar in 2021, the 4-kilometer circuit on the Mediterranean coast is the venue for the GT World Challenge for the third time.
Excellent performance
The number 69 Ferrari 296 GT3 put in an excellent performance at Hockenheim, giving Albert Costa Balboa and Thierry Vermeulen two strong finishes. After the #14 Ferrari of Giacomo Altoè and Konsta Lappalainen performed well at the two previous events, especially in Misano, Italy, the team is looking to return to the top again with the Italian-Finnish driver duo in Valencia. Albert Costa Balboa is the only Spanish competitor on the grid. The Emil Frey Racing driver was born a few hours north in Barcelona and now lives in Andorra.
16.5 points missing for the top 3
Despite the disappointing race at the Hockenheimring two weeks ago, Emil Frey Racing is still in fifth place in the Sprint Cup team standings. With 42 points, the team currently lacks 16.5 points to make the leap into the top three.
The Sprint Cup weekend in Valencia begins on Friday morning with free practice at 11.20 am. Later in the afternoon, pre-qualifying will follow at 4.20pm. On both Saturday and Sunday, qualifying will take place at 9 a.m. and the one-hour race at 2 p.m.
It is important to learn from the mistakes
Jürg Flach, Technical Director: "After the last sprint race in Hockenheim, we have to learn from our mistakes and show a strong performance. The track in Valencia is very twisty and it can still be very hot in September. So it's essential to adapt the setup to these conditions. That means having a car that rotates well, especially for qualifying, and minimizing tire degradation on the rear axle for the race. We know the track very well from previous races and tests and are traveling to Spain full of optimism."
