For immediate release October 02, 2005

The unique World Series by Renault Qualifying system certainly didn’t work in Will Power’s favour this weekend in Estoril, Portugal when his 7th and 4th fastest overall times put him 11th and 7th on the grid respectively providing a tough challenge for the Aussie in today’s races.

Will got a great start in the sprint race but was forced to drop down to 13th place in avoidance of an incident. Soon after, Fabio Carbone spun out and it promoted the Aussie up to 12th place and on to the tail of Fernando Rees.ÿ Will could see the tell tale signs of a radiator failure when Rees’ car started to spew water from his side pods, and backed off – the water was quickly replaced by oil and although there was a distance between them, Power’s car was completely covered in it.ÿ Unable to see properly, Will had to wait for the inevitable engine failure before he could snatch up 11th place.

Finally in a bit of clear air, but with a perilously loose front nose box, Will pumped out the fastest lap of the race on lap 8 of 19.ÿ He soon caught up with Adrian Valles and Simon Pagenaud and resumed battle, loosing his fastest lap but gaining one point for crossing the line in 10th place after passing Valles with 6 laps remaining.

The pit-stop race held plenty of promise from 7th on the grid, however Will was lucky to survive the carnage at turn one and suffered a broken front wing when Tristan Gommendy’s rear wheel got a touch too close.ÿ The safety car was brought out to clear the turn 1 pile up and Will came in for his mandatory tyre stop from 5th place when the safety car retired on lap 5, changing two front tyres and also fitting a new nose cone because of his wing damage.ÿ The stop was quick, but the nose cone change cost him dearly and he rejoined back in 25th place.ÿ However, the race was far from boring for Power, who in the 20 laps remaining motored through the field to finish a respectable P12 with the 3rd fastest lap.

“Qualifying stung me this weekend.” Said Power.ÿ “In session two I was fourth quickest overall and my teammate was sixth quickest but he was on the front row and I was back in 7th – work that one out.”

“I can’t say the races were boring for me though, there was so much going on the laps flew by for me – I could have done with a few more!ÿ It was very disappointing to break my wing in race two when I was up to 5th, but I concentrated on finishing both races and that’s what I managed to do.”



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