Acceleration 14 – MONZA: FELIX ROSENQVIST WINS FIRST FA1 RACE

During the fourth round of ACCELERATION 2014, team Sweden’s Felix Rosenqvist (SWE) won the first FA1 race in Monza. Nigel Melker (NLD) started from the second row, and finished second. Championship leader Mirko Bortolotti (ITA) qualified sixth and took the last podium place. All FA1 cars finished the race in Italy, which was incredibly warm. Rosenqvist joined the ACCELERATION championship in Portugal for the first round and is driving in the fourth round here in Italy as well. The Swedish driver from Performance had one goal: to bring back a first win to team Sweden. Felix started from pole, but had a bad start which made him drop two places. Rosenqvist says: “I started from pole but the start wasn’t that good – like it seems to happen to us often in this series. We need to work on that! Afterwards I kept a good connection with the top two. Both Sergio Campana – who had the lead at that time – and Nigel Melker were close to me.”

Nigel Melker (NLD) took the lead of the field in the second lap, but had to make room for Rosenqvist: “In the beginning I was quicker than the others and after two laps I was leading the field. Then I saw Felix coming close and like the qualification this morning, he was incredibly fast. I let him pass without a fight, since I thought about the championship.” The Swedish driver passed Melker in the first chicane, which eventually made him win the race.

“Starting from P6, I had a decent start and got passed Dennis Lind on the first corner,” said Mirko Bortolotti (ITA). “Then I tried to pass Richard Gonda, but that didn’t work at first. Finally I got a run on him and managed to pass him. The three leaders were still close to me, so I decided to do my pit stop which was quite good.” He managed to overtake Campana in the pit lane and after his stop he got on the track a bit behind Melker.

Results FA1 race Saturday June 7th:
1 Felix Rosenqvist (SWE) — 18 laps —
2 Nigel Melker (NLD) 11.439
3 Mirko Bortolotti (ITA) 12.434
4 Richard Gonda (SVK) 15.424
5 Sergio Campana (ITA) 25.160