Sean Edwards from “Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit“ stood on top of the podium in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race in Barcelona, however, was set back to position 12th due to a retrospective penalty. Sascha Maassen thus achieves position 11. Khaled Al Qubaisi ends up on position 14 and registers his first championship points.

The penny has dropped, however, also in Barcelona the race result of the “Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit“ drivers still does not show the true performance. Sean Edwards was considered being one of the front-runners for the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup European season opener and achieved the result that complied to his performance –in the unofficial race standings. The stewards’ decision to impose a 25 second penalty on him means the officials deprived him of the victory.

In free practice as well as in qualifying, the 23-year-old clearly marked his territory with position 2. “I am pretty sure to also find the 0.3 seconds that are missing to the pole sitter”, was his comment after the timed session. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have another clear lap in the end.”

The race started perfectly for the young Brit and he immediately set himself upfront. In the following 14 laps, he delivered some great race action in his battles against the runner-off Jeroen Bleekemolen. A true racing feast for the spectators’ eyes at the “Circuit de Catalunya”.

The battle came to a head in the last two laps, when Jeroen Bleekemolen managed to get passed Sean Edwards. In the following counter strike, Bleekemolen closed the door and the “Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit” pilot was not able to prevent the contact. „I am sorry that I collided with Jeroen, but he didn’t leave any room any more. We had a captivating fight in the race. That was great. Unfortunately, my tyres lost grip, as I pushed a bit too early in the race. The stewards decided afterwards, that my contact would have been avoidable and gave me a 25 second penalty, which was too much. But I have to accept this decision of course.”

Edwards’ obvious disappointment was quickly allayed by the team’s backer Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA). “This is what the sport is all about – the ability to deal with set-backs and move on to future triumphs,” said Ahmed Hussein, Deputy Director General, ADTA.

Sascha Maassen was dogged by bad racing luck. After the change of the differential lock on his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup after qualifying, the balance of his car was performing as expected. Starting from position 14, the 40-year-old, however, had to evade colliding competitors and was in the end pushed into the gravel from behind. “All of a sudden, you start it all again – from the back”, was his comment with a grim sense of humour. Due to the following catch-up, he finished the race on position 11. “All in all, I caught up 10 positions. The car feels better with the new differential lock. Many thanks to the whole team, who did everything to convince the Porsche race organisation that a change was necessary.”

Khaled Al Qubaisi, the third pilot of “Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit” experienced a truly unleashed race. The “king of the race start”, as he is called in his home country Abu Dhabi, was fully complying to his nickname and caught up five positions in the race start. “It was a great race for me. The start was perfect. In the race itself I most of all tried to hold the speed and keep out of the collisions in front of me.“ With a constant performance, the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup “rookie” managed to capture position 12, however finished on position 14 due to a smaller driving mistake. “I am not only very confident, but absolutely happy. I was able to reduce the gap to the front constantly during the weekend. Furthermore, the result means my first two championship points.”

“Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit” team manager Michael Seifert comments: „It is absolutely annoying. Our performance is good, however, also this time it is not shown in the result. The battle between Sean and Jeroen was captivating and in the end unfortunate for us. Sean did not want to send him off track, however, there was no other chance. Sascha is still dogged by bad luck. For Khaled we are very happy. The result means the first championship points for him and he was able to close the gap to the top. That’s a great result for him.”

tolimit managing director Hans-Bernd Kamps adds: „At first, the weekend showed the results that we are able to achieve. This confirms not only us in our team composition, but also the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, Deutsche Post and Windreich AG in partnering with us. That we had to step back from the top of the podium in the end is to be regretted. But that’s racing.”

“Team Deutsche Post by tolimit” pilot Sascha Maassen finishes the first run of Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in Hockenheim on position seven. His team mate Sean Edwards fell back in the very last lap due to the loss of fuel pressure and saves position ten.

The race weekend started well for the 23-year-old Brit Sean Edwards. The fourth-best time in qualifying with a gap of only two hundreds of a second to the top brought him to the second row on the grid. After a successful start, the ambitious race driver was able to break away with the top flight around Nick Tandy, Nicolas Armindo and Christian Engelhart and showed the spectators some exciting battles. By the way, he was able to set the fastest race lap. Unfortunately, some of the 911 GT3 Cup suffered from the loss of fuel pressure. This technical problem hit Armindo and Engelhart as well as Sean Edwards.

“It happened in the very last lap, that I was also hit by the fuel pressure problem after it had showed up on Christian’s and Nicolas’ car. With a stuttering engine, I was able to save position ten. The weekend started very well, but unfortunately didn’t end with the respective outcome. Anyway I was able to drive the fastest race lap. That’s motivating for the next races”, says Sean Edwards.

For Porsche one-make-cup repatriate Sascha Maassen qualifying position 13 hadn’t been the desired result. In the race, however, the 40-year-old race driver played out his experience. Although he had to shortly drive off track at the start and needed some laps to clean his tyres, he was able to avoid all duels and collisions.

His tactics: as a tyre-saving driver catching some less-experienced with dismantling tyres. With a constant performance, the former Porsche works driver achieved position seven and profited from the technical problems of the leading group: “My qualifying didn’t bring the desired result. In the race, however, I was sure to be able to catch up. Position seven is ok, but can of course be improved.”

Team manager Jörg Michaelis comments: „It’s of course annoying that Sean was hit by the fuel pressure problem in the very last lap. His fastest race lap and his constant performance in the race, however, showed that we will be a serious competitor in this championship. Sascha played off his routine. The result overall means 15 points in the team championship. That’s ok for the first race weekend.”

tolimit general manager Hans-Bernd Kamps adds: „Sometimes you need to be lucky in racing. Today, luck wasn’t on our side. Despite of this, we are pleased that we were able to show some exciting races to the spectators, the fans and our partners – above all from Deutsche Post and Windreich AG.“

The Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup series moved onto one of the most challenging tracks of the season, the infamous Spa-Francorchamps in the Arden Mountains. “It’s my favourite track in the world” explained Sean on the lead up to the weekend.

Practice was just about wet enough for rain tyres to be used. Immediately Sean set the bench mark with a 2.48.863, which would not be beaten throughout the whole 45 minute session. “Practice was good, we did a good lap straight out of the box and then tried various changes, but the track got even more slippery after the first few laps, so we could not improve our time”.

Qualifying was an interesting affair, was it going to be wet or dry? Sean was first out on track and it was spitting with rain over half the track and on his first flying lap, he went straight on at Les Combe, over the grass and lost his front splitter, along with flat spotting the tyres. This left his without a real lap and down in twenty sixth position. The track was now dry and the team was testing a few different setups on the car, prior to using the second set of tyres! With 15 minutes to go, Sean set a time of 2.26.034 to claim the provisional pole position and pitted to wait for the end. Unfortunately the lap wasn’t perfect and they had gone out a bit too soon, as the track was faster at the end, so he dropped down to fifth place. Still, this was a great starting place for Sunday’s race.

The biggest question was the weather, all the Supercup teams were busy in the early hours of the morning, using the F1 weather stations to predict what was going to happen and set the cars up accordingly. Everything was pointing towards a dry race, so the whole grid opted for full dry settings and slick tyres. The race got underway and Sean held position in fifth on the run up through Eau Rouge, but got a good run on Van Lagen for fourth and went to the outside, but all hell broke loose in the braking zone for Les Combe! Rene Rast, Jeroen Bleekemolen, David Saleens and Sean Edwards all went straight across the grass on a slightly damp braking zone. The only one who made it through was Van Lagen, with Rene Rast being the only causality spinning into the barrier. Sean was now up to fourth place and putting big pressure on Saleens for third and on the second lap he made a slight mistake, which allowed Sean to slip up the inside and then set about Bleekemolen in second.

Then, contrary to the F1’s high tech weather predictions, it started to rain and with everyone still being on slicks, it started to get very tricky. Sean, now formally known as the rainmeister of the Supercup grid was all over Bleekemolen, the newly crowned champion for second place. But it was not made easy, he made his car as wide as possible until Sean finally got a run through Eau Rouge and slipstreamed him down to Les Combe, out braked him and went round the outside, he was now in second place, all be it 6 seconds behind the leader who had escaped while the battle for second was going on.

“I thought there would be no way to catch Jap, as the gap was so big, but I pushed hard and brought the gap right down in only a few laps”. All of a sudden, Van Lagen got it all wrong at the top of Eau Rouge, which allowed Sean to close right up and slipstream him all the way down the back straight and in the same move he had done for second place, went round the outside into Les Combe and took the lead of the race! In the remainder of the race, he pulled out a nice cushion on Van Lagen and just kept the car on the track to bring home his second win of the season in emphatic style. “I am so happy, I was expecting my second win in Valencia when I had pole position, but it was not to be, as we got excluded from qualifying. So to win here at Spa is just amazing and my first year in Supercup has surpassed all my expectations! Thanks to everyone from Konrad motorsport for giving me an amazing car, as we have been fast throughout the weekend, both in the dry and the wet, so it’s a fantastic result for the whole team”.

After Sean’s stunning victory in Spa, he has moved up to seventh in the driver standings and is the top rookie so far this season. The team’s championship is also very close, with Jiri Janak scoring solid points for the team in eighth. All will be decided in Monza, where Sean could theoretically still claim the runner up spot in the championship and the team have a very good chance of winning the teams title. Monza is this weekend, so no time to relax for Sean and Konrad Motorsport!

Sean Edwards arrived in Valencia with high hopes of a good result. The Konrad team had been somewhat been re shuffled, with Jan Seyffarth going to Tolimit and being replaced by Jiri Janak in the number 23 Konrad machine.

The test session didn’t go well for Sean, as while he was running his brake pads in, there was a problem with the front suspension. He came in, but the team could not fix it in time and they missed the whole session. “It’s very unfortunate, as the track is very different to drive on the Michelin tyres and ceramic brakes and they have changed the track a bit since last time, so we are on the back foot already.” Sean said after testing.

Qualifying being forty five minutes, the team decided to use the first thirty minutes as a test session, to get the car and driver on the pace. This worked well and the car was perfectly setup for the second set of new tyres. Bleekemolen was on provisional Pole Position and already out of his car waiting to see if anyone would beat his time. Konrad sent Sean out with eight minutes to go, with the notion of full attack. He then set about a blistering lap, to secure Pole Position by only 0.004 from Jeroen Bleekemolen, with three minutes of the session to go, much to Bleekemolen’s suprise! Third was Stephan Rosina just 0.046 behind pole and Damian Faulkner was fourth, just 0.052 behind pole! It has to have been the closest qualifying in the Supercup’s history.

On the in lap to the pits, disaster struck when Sean’s car ran out of fuel. Under Supercup rules, there has to be a minimum of 2 Litres left in the car at the end of each session, so that they can analyze it. The team set about removing the fuel tank and every last drop they could find in the car, but it was to no avail, there was only 1 Litre in the car. The same problem for Sean’s new team mate, Jiri Janak, he qualified in 20th and ran out of fuel too. It was a disaster for the team, with the stewards ruling both cars to be stricken of all their lap times and start at the back of the grid! Somewhere along the line, there was a slight miscalculation on the fuel consumption and with the different temperatures between the days, qualifying used a lot more fuel than was anticipated by the team.

Sean and Jiri started the race in 26th and 27th positions, with nothing to loose they were going to work together through the pack, along with Sean’s former team mate Jan Seyffarth, who crashed in qualifying. All three got off to a good start, gaining three of four places off the line, but at turn 2, Van Splunteren got hit and caused havoc, Jiri went inside and got away with it, where as Sean and Jan were stuck outside and both got his, causing rear end damage to the suspension. Sean then set about making his way through the pack and with 7 laps to go, he was upto 15th and stuck behind Sebastian Bleekemolen, who was making life very difficult, blocking at every passing place. Eventually he did get past and made it to an incredible 12th place by the finish of the race! Jiri followed him home in 13th. “It was a good race from both of us, there was nothing more we could do starting so far back. We got some points and prize money with no damage at least, from a weekend to forget really. I am going to Spa with a lot of confidence for a good result now, which we deserve.”

The week-end in Budapest started off with a good practice. Sean and his team mate Jan Seyffarth ended up 7th and 9th, only a few tenths off the pace. Qualifying, however was a disaster. The team just didn’t get the setup of the cars or the timing of using the new tyres right, so Sean and Jan ended up down in 16th and 17th, which meant the race was always going to be tough.

The team, not letting this bad start dampen their spirits worked hard all night to prepare the cars which paid off by both Sean and Jan both getting off to good starts in the race making up around 4 places off the line! Unfortunately Jan got taken out on the first lap and nearly collected Sean on the way causing Sean to lose a few positions avoiding him. Sean then made his way past a few cars and that’s when he started attacking Armindo, unfortunately for Sean Armindo kept blocking him and closing the door. Armindo braked a bit early at turn 12 and Sean tried to take advantage of this by diving to the inside. Armindo either didn’t see Sean or tried to shut the door again but whichever it was he just turned into the corner as if Sean wasn’t there. Sean explained later “I tried to avoid contact by going over the curb, but that just launched me into the side of him and put me out of the race with broken suspension.” This was an unfortunate and dramatic finish to Sean and Konrad Motorsports race. The race as always did go on without them seeing Damien Faulkner in 1st, followed by Jeroen Bleekemolen in 2nd and Patrick Huisman in 3rd.

A weekend to forget for the Konrad team as they scored no points for the teams’ championship. They must look forward to Valencia now and try and get the best possible result to bring them back into the championship hunt.