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23.06.2007 - DNF from AFR and dent rear fender from AGT 's first race
Starting to first race AFR race at Sepang International Circuit Pekka was not able to get even to the start line. Pekka suffered technical problem already on out lap and he was forced to retire even before the race started. "I felt some problems in my steering while I was doing the out lap. I decided to pit in so that we could have more time to fix this problem. We were not able to fix the problem and due to safety issue we decide not to start and try to finish the race.
Pekka's first ever touring car race also didn't went how it was suppose to go. Pekka was very familiar from standing start and he showed also that he know how to star. Starting from P7 and arriving to turn on P5 is impressive but going to Turn 2 Samson Chan decided knock Pekka of the track by touching him to the rear. "I was really good at start considering the problem what we have on Ferrari during starts. Because of the F1 system we can not rev our engine on start so we can basically push full throttle only when it goes to green which takes the revs out of power range. Anyway everything went well before I was knocked off. I had to come in and check my car and after I drove slowly to the finish line."
22.06.2007 - Sepang qualifying report from AGT and AFR
Pekka was fastest during the official practices of Formula Renault but on qualifying he couldn't match to Imperatori and Niemela. He qualified in P3 out of 26 cars. " To be honest I made exactly same mistake as last year here. On my fastest laps I was stucked in traffic.. P3 is good place to start but P1 is always better" said Pekka.
In GT cars Pekka was still trying to get use to the car after having only 2 half hour practice and he finished in 7th of 24 cars. "We are still struggling with our set up but I feel that i am not pushing as hard as I should. I think our Michelin tires are not as good as the Pirelli tires here because it is too hot for our soft compound and Pirelli on the other hand have medium compound. I think in a race I can be in top 5 if everything goes all right".
10.06.2007 - Pekka Joins to Asian GT Championship with Ferrari 360 Challenge
Pekka Saarinen Joins to AGT Championship.
01.05.2007 - Pekka Saarinen Racing entered Asian Formula Renault series
AFR (Asian Formula Renault) series started exceptionally on last Tuesday and Wednesday in Zhuhai due to a world wide holidays. Last years Champion Pekka Saarinen entered his new team Pekka Saarinen Racing (PSR) to AFR series with 3 cars. Drivers for his team are Geoffrey Kwong (USA), Alexis Sabet (Colombia) and Pekka Saarinen (FIN) who is also the team manager.
"This is totally new project for me, I am so excited to see how can I pass my knowledge to my drivers. Indeed I have been racing for long time already and I always wanted to do team of my own. Also I am really happy that Kenneth Ma (CEO of FRD Motorsport) is supporting me in this project. To be honest without FRD Motorsport, my project would be extremely difficult to accomplish. So big thanks to FRD from that" said the team manager Saarinen.
18.01.2007 - Pekka at japanese F3-tests at Fuji
Pekka Saarinen drove his first official tests with F3 car during this week at well-known Fuji F1-track. Unfortunately Pekka was forced to share ZAP Speed team's car with japanese Kurihara, who is the winner of Japan F4 serie. Pekka was the on rookie-driver among all the drivers who were testing during those two days but it surely didn't make any difference to Pekka
”There's nothing to worry about. All the drivers are rookies at some point of their career and I don't honestly think that this matter has anything to do with my performance.”
At Tuesday Pekka managed to drove only 40 laps and his fastest laptime 1.38.498 was 7th quickiest at that point. Pekka was only 1,5 seconds behind Ishiura, who was the fastest driver so far. At Wednesday morning the team engineers told that the other of these two drivers will get the whole afternoon for himself according the morning laptimes. After the morning stints Japanese Kurihara was forced to move aside due Pekka's 7th fastest time on wets. During the afternoon Pekka did do better laptimes but the rain did make the circumstances really difficult. Finally Pekka hold the 8th place in timesheets.
”In the beginning it was difficult but when I get familiar with the car and found the right rhytm, all things went much more easier and I get faster and faster laptimes. During the day we managed to found pretty good setup and at the end of the day me and team were pretty satisfied to the results.”
Pekka haven't signed any contracts yet but he thinks that there are only some minor details to take care of.
”I have been contacted from many teams and even in here I got an excellent offer from one of the top teams, Three Bond. I think I will drove some kind of tests at Motegi with them during the next week. Let's see what happens...”
