Assaillit happy with Wakefield result

Fujitsu Racing’s Damian Assaillit has finished 16th overall at the second round of the Fujitsu V8 Series at Wakefield Park.
His acheivement over the weekend has left him placed 15th in the championship points standings.

Assaillit suffered with terrible oversteer throughout the weekend, putting up his best performance, although not his best finish, coming in the second of three races.

After qualifying 20th, the 19-year-old driver finished race 1 in 14th place.

Assaillit made up 4 places at the start of race 2 getting as high as 10th, before being turned around by Brett Hobson. The Engineering student put in a inspired race to recover to finish 15th.

After two 17-lap races, the final race of the weekend was supposed to be 30-laps. However, an 11-car pile-up just after the start forced the race to be stopped. Once the track was cleared, the race was re-set for 20-laps and Assaillit couldn’t make the most of any opportunities and finished 17th.

“Not a fantastic weekend, but we completed all three races and have a straight car,” said Assaillit.

“We battled oversteer from the outset. Although we started to head in the right direction, we had already lost too much ground.

“The second race was very good. I felt I had the pace to move up. It was disappointing not finish inside the top-10 in that race.

“That was a big accident in the final race. I have to say that I was fortunate to dive across the infield at the right moment. There was dust everywhere and zero visibility, but when you saw all the damaged cars being brought back on trucks, it was good not to be amongst them.

“We now have a couple of months before the next race at Sandown. We will use the time to really get our head around improving the car and hitting the track running at that event.”

Boss of Image Racing, the team responsible for running the Fujitsu Racing entry in the Fujitsu Series, David McMahon had hoped for a better result this weekend.

“We came into the weekend wanting a better result,” said McMahon.

“We are still getting on top of the front-end geometry of the car. Throughout the races we did improve things, but it’s clearly an area we need to look at ahead of Sandown.

“Damian worked very hard in all three races and he comfortably set times in the top-10.

“His skills avoiding that big accident are certainly worth noting!”