WestCoast Racing returned to the top step of the podium after victory on the streets of Singapore (17-18 September, 2016) for the second year in succession, this time with the Russian Mikhail Grachev taking an incredible fourth victory since joining the team.
For Grachev, the lights-to-flag victory in the weekend’s second race was an amazing achievement marking his fourth win in just ten starts with the Swedish outfit, more than justifying his belief in himself and the WestCoast team to make the switch from Round 4 of the Championship at Imola where he promptly won on his debut.
“First of all I’d like to thanks for the team for the great job they did all weekend,” said Grachev. “We deserved this victory number four. It wasn’t easy though, especially in the heat of Singapore and I made a good start from the pole to create a little gap.
“Then there was Safety Car number one but I was able to make a good restart to regain that gap and then there was the Second Safety Car. I was a little disappointed by that as I had to do it all over again! That we managed and it’s a great result for me and for WestCoast Racing.”
The victory in front of the Formula One crowd was welcome relief from what was otherwise a turbulent weekend for the team with both leading driver Gianni Morbidelli and returning driver Kevin Gleason falling foul of both the stewards and fellow competitors.
Morbidelli had initially qualified on the front row for Race 1 with a great lap in qualifying while Gleason’s tenth spot gave the American the Race 2 reverse grid Pole Position.
However, a wave of controversial penalties handed down by the stewards saw the pair, along with no less than 14 of their fellow competitors penalised to varying degrees. The net result was demotion to seventh for Morbidelli for Race 1 and the loss of the Race 2 pole for Gleason, who would be forced to start 11th.
The main beneficiary being Grachev who was fortunate to inherit the Race 2 pole in a reversal of positions with last year’s race victor, Gleason.
Race 1 on the Saturday was hoped to be a recovery drive and to salvage as many points after the penalties. However, for Morbidelli at least this proved not to be the case as he was spun out on the opening lap through no fault of his own whilst Gleason moved up to eighth with a good performance on his return the TCR series. Morbidelli recovering to finish tenth with Grachev preserving his machinery for his Race 2 challenge, finishing 11th.
Sunday’s Race 2 delivering a great result for Grachev, moving him up to eighth in the championship standings but proved to be more of the same for Morbidelli and Gleason.
The American unfortunately saw his race weekend go from bad-to-worse after being clipped by Mat’o Homola on the opening lap and spinning down to 16th as a result.
Morbidelli meanwhile was having more of the same when he was spun out by Pepe Oriola whilst running strongly in sixth position. The face that the Spaniard was given a drive through penalty for the move, was really of no conciliation to the WestCoast driver.
“That’s a great result for Mikhail with his fourth win since joining us at Imola,” stated Team Manager James Nixon. “He made a great start and controlled the pace from the front. A great drive.
“Gianni’s terrible luck continued unfortunately as he was hit and turned around in both races but he’s fighting on despite it being tough at times to stay positive.
“As for Kevin, he made a great start but was involved in a really unnecessary incident that was beyond our control. We’ll be back strong at Sepang.”
The team now regroup and move on the penultimate round of the Series, again supporting the Formula One event, this time in Malaysia starting 30th October, 2016.