Maya Weug comes away from Miami with a fifth and a sixth place and keeps third place in the classification, while Aurelia Nobels had a difficult weekend
Miami hosted the second round of the F1 Academy in which the two Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy students, Maya Weug and Aurelia Nobles encountered a few technical difficulties, but Maya came away with 18 points and is still third in the standings on 51 points. “This wasn’t the easiest of weekends” she said. “We worked a lot over the two free practice sessions to prepare for qualifying, but unfortunately we struggled quite a bit with tyre temperatures, which affected my starting position for both races. We tried to make the most of every opportunity and came away with quite a few points, but we know there are a few areas we need to work on before the next round in Barcelona.”
Aurelia. Nobels did not pick up any points but there were still some positive to take away from the Miami weekend. Aurelia continues to make progress, as could be seen from her good lap times and while she had the potential to finish in the points, a few race incidents and some bad luck meant the top ten was out of reach.
Race-1. The temperature was over 30 degrees at the start, with Weug lined up in fifth place, immediately making up one place, while Nobels started eighth and moved up to seventh by the end of lap 2. The early stages saw plenty of fighting for Maya and Aurelia, the latter moving up to sixth with a good move on Nerea Marti. With two laps remaining Weug passed Hamna Al Qubaisi at turn 11 to go third but she was given a five second penalty for exceeding track limits and was classified sixth. Nobels also got a 10 second penalty following a collision with Tina Hausmann on the opening lap which dropped her to 13th at the flag.
Race 2. Weug and Nobels started from sixth and seventh places and Maya passed Al Qubaisi on lap 5, while Aurelia was involved in a collision at turn 7, with Lola Lovinfosse who was given a 10 second penalty, which dropped Nobels to the back of the field. Weug managed to keep a train behind her and then on the last lap, she fended off a last attack from Al Qubaisi to cross the line in fifth place. Nobels finished 13th, disappointed not to have got the results that should have been within her grasp.