Canadian race car driver and Niverville native, David Richert, completed a triple-header race event this weekend in Monza, Italy, with three sensational on-track battles.
Start of Eurocup Formula Renault race.
With 25 drivers entered for this weekend’s Eurocup Formula Renault event at Autodromo di Monza in Italy, Richert was able to finish races one through three in a consistent fashion of 18th, 19th, and 18th respectively. But it was the incredibly close competition on the ultra high speed circuit that ultimately tells the story, in fact, Richert finished Race 1 just three tenths of a second behind Italian driver Alessandro Perullo.
Richert’s weekend got off to a challenging start as all of his luggage, including some of his important racing gear, spent the week lost in Air Canada’s baggage system. After canvasing various race teams, Richert was able to piece together what was needed to manage the racing weekend and begin practice without delay on Thursday morning.
Qualifying became interesting as a few drops of rain began to fall around the circuit, but shortly after it was back to the intense heat and sunshine which dominated the track activity all weekend long.
“Racing at Monza is always a thrilling experience as the the speeds are so high.” stated Richert. “In order to produce a quick lap you really need to position yourself directly behind another car and in their slipstream so they can tow you along. It can be a challenge to follow closely but it makes for some extremely fun racing”.
The close result of Race 1 was followed up with two more exciting races that saw Richert cross the finish line less than 1.5 seconds behind the car ahead on both occasions.
While it was the sweltering heat which gave drivers all they could handle throughout the weekend, it was a sudden storm after Race 2 that was the talk of the paddock as it tore apart race team tents and toppled trees. Fortunately no injuries were reported.
“I’m happy with the progress we made throughout the weekend but I’m pretty competitive so finishing in 18th or 19th is never fully satisfying,” said Richert. “We will keep pushing hard on the business side of the sport and hopefully we will be in a position to compete with the guys at the front soon. But I’ll never complain after any race weekend at Monza, I still consider it a privilege just to be racing at a place like this.”
