„Mixed emotions“ is the best word to describe how race 1 went for the Zele-Racing Team today. What seemed to be a safe victory in sportscar class, turned to a retirement of the white Zele-Racing Pilbeam with 3 minutes remaining.

Andi Zuber explained:“It was the right decision to start from the pitlane, there were 3 cars involved in a crash in turn 1. I lost a lot of time because the SC signs came out immediately and i could not overtake anyone for 2 laps. Once the green flags came out i had a good run and managed to move up to P14 overall before the gearbox got stuck in 3rd. It´s a shame, because we were really quick. My last lap was in the 1:31´s, which would have been the 5th or 6th fastest lap of the race.“

Teamboss Michael Zele:“ Unfortunately the valveblock of the paddleshift system had a sticky valve. We lost airpressure and Andi was not able to shift up or down anymore. Retiring from a race when leading is sad, but on the other hand we have seen the true potential of the car today, which is very encourageing. Andi did a great job today!“

Andi Zuber put the Zele-Racing Pilbeam on the 5th row (P9) for race 1 of the Interseries today. He qualified the 2.0 CN sportscar right in between F1 engined F3000, World Series and F3 cars. The 31 car strong field will start race 1 at 3:00 p.m. today.

Andi Zuber:“ It went quite well, i´m still searching for the correct brake balance, but the car feels great. We qualified on the  used set of tires from yesterdays Free Practice. I´m having fun in this little car, it´s totally different from what i´m used to, but it´s really nice.“

Michael Zele:“ We´ve shown a good performance today and have outqualified our next competitor in a similar car by 3 seconds. However, together with Andi we took the decision to start from the pitlane, simply because the mix of all sorts of different cars and over 30 cars on the grid bear a potential risk of a corner 1 crash.“

Team Zele-Racing ran a total of 3 cars during the free practice sessions today. The rebuilt Dallara Nissan World Series car was the first car to hit the track this morning. Zele-Racing driver Andi Zuber took the wheel to check the balance and setup for the still handicaped Peter Randlshofer (3 broken ribs from the Hockenheim crash). After about 20 troublefree laps he handed the car over to Randlshofer, who had to stop after a few laps.

Randlshofer:“ It´s still very painful for me to drive again. Over the bumps i can feel the broken ribs, and there´s quite a lot of them on this track. The car looks beautiful and i´ve seen what Andi was able to do with it. I have something to learn from now.“

The next Zele-Racing car on track was the GP2/05. Zuber shook it down successfully and completed a total of 15 laps.

Andi Zuber:“ The car is really nice, the balance is good and it´s good fun to drive. I am a bit uncomfortable in the car, because we had no time to check my driving position before the shakedown, but still we managed a quite impressive laptime on our first attempt. It´s nice to drive on my home track again after all these years.“

Also the Pilbeam Honda sportscar completed its first laps on the reopened RedBull Ring today. It proved to be a very competitive and easy to drive car. Andi Zuber completed 10 laps and reported:“ Unbelievable! First i thought it will be boring to drive this thing, but man i was wrong. It´s just amazing. It´s massive fun to drive the Pilbeam. It breaks excellent, it downshifts just perfect and you can throw it around the corners. I am looking forward to the Qualifying and Race tomorrow.“

Also team principal Michael Zele was happy:“ It was good to see all three cars running without any major trouble. We had such a hard time to finish everything in time for this weekend and i have to say thank you to everyone involved, especially also to my father, Hermann, who´s still spending a lot of time in the workshop day by day. We Still have to sort out some little issues, but it will not stop us from running the Pilbeam in the Quali and Race tomorrow. I am surprised how quick the little sportscar is.“

Following his barrell roll accident at Hockenheim, Peter Randlshofer is looking forward to race his Dallara Nissan World Series car again this weekend at the recently re-opened RedBull Ring (former A1-Ring) in Zeltweg / Austria. The Zele-Racing crew is working hard to complete the work on the orange coloured Dallara in time.

Zele-Racing has further entered former GP2 racer and Honda F1 testdriver Andi Zuber to race one of the team´s cars at Zeltweg this weekend.

Michael Zele:“ We are working very close with Andi for years now. He is also coaching our young drivers during testdays. We did a couple of races in EuroBOSS last year with him, which was really good fun. The target for this weekend will be to shake down two of our cars, a 2.0CN Pilbeam Sportscar and the recently rebuilt GP2/05.“

Alongside Andi Zuber and Peter Randlshofer several other Zele-Racing clients will be present as well. Peter Milavec will race his Lola T92/50 3.5 V8 Cosworth DFR and Dr.Norbert Groer is going to take the wheel of a PRC Sportscar once more.

Hermann Waldy had a good weekend at St.Anton an der Jessnitz. Following a strong performance in free practice on Saturday he stormed to victory (Formula class) in extremely difficult weather condition on Sunday morning. Whilst two practice runs on Saturdays were dry, the race on sunday had to be redflagged due to heavy rainstorms after the field completed just 1 run.

Several drivers refused to start the race on Sunday, Nic Brebsom (LUX), another Zele-Racing customer being one of them:“ In my opinion it´s too dangerous. I prefer to pack up and drive back home. I had a bad accident on this track some years ago – i don´t want to experiance that again.“

Michael Zele:“ I am glad we had some good data and troublefree running all weekend on Hermann Waldy´s new car. We´re starting to use its potential now bit by bit and Hermann is getting used to it as well. It´s looking quite promising.“

Hermann Waldy:“ I am happy with the result of the race, but even more happy with my performance yesterday in  practice. It will take some time before i can use the cars real potential, but i can say already that there´s a lot more to come from both the car and myself. I gained a lot confidence this weekend and I´m looking forward to the next races. Usti will be difficult because it´s too much stop and go, but Verzengis should suit us well.“

Full race results can be checked out by clicking on below link:

http://www.mic-scheibbs.at/

We have completed the rebuild of our GP2 chassis 031 recently. At the same time the design had been changed from white/blue/orange to white/black/luminescent red colours. The Zele-Racing GP2/05 is now ready to race and can be rented for trackdays as well as racing in BossGP and private testing.

The GP2/05 features a 4.0 V8 Mecachrome engine which delivery 630BHP @ 10.000RPM. The maximum achievable speed, depending on gearing, is over 325 kph. F1 spec. carbon brakes, a hydraulic paddleshift operated semi – automatic 6 speed gearbox and fully equipped Magneti Marelli data acquisition system are further features on board of this state of the art singleseater.

Disappointing race result for Hermann Waldy at the Rechberg Hillclimb Grand Prix of Austria this year. Not enough that he had to deal with extremely difficult weatherconditions, a muddy and slippery track  and downshift problems during his practice runs on saturday, he suffered a heavy downpour in his first heat on Sunday as well.

Waldy:“ Unbelievable, i started on a drying track into the first heat, but after 2km there was a wall of water coming down on me. I did not want to take any risk and had to slow down, because i could barely see the track.  In the second race it was still wet in some places, but i did not push to the maximum because there was no chance for me today to score better points for the championship. The positive thing is that the new car works perfect now.“

Michael Zele:“ We had some major issues with the gearbox yesterday in the practice runs, but luckily we found the reason for that and were able to provide a good car for today. Unfortunately the weather did not play into our hands. We have to forget about this one and focus on the next event in 2 weeks at St.Anton/Jessnitz.“

Simone Faggioli (IT) won the race ahead of Marcel Steiner (CH) and Milan Svoboda (CZ). The race was overshadowed by further crashes due to the wet and slippery track. Both Fausto Bormolini (IT) and Urs Müller (CH) went off track and crashed their cars heavily.

The 2011 Rechberg Race is go. Mixed weatherconditions hit the practice runs earlier today. First victim of the damp and extremely slippery track was Hungarian F3000 racer Laszlo Szasz, who lost control of his Reynard F3000 and damaged it heavily. The driver escaped unhurt.

Hermann Waldy made good progress over the first two runs making himself familiar with the Lola Judd.

Skys have cleared  for the third practice whilst the Zele-Racing team continued to finetune and adjust the TC and Paddleshift System.

On a dry track in the third run this afternoon, Waldy suffered some trouble with his paddleshift system. The Team is investigating the reason.

Hermann Waldy:“ I am a bit frustrated with my last run. I had problems with the downshifts and lost a lot of time. I hope we can solve this for the race tomorrow.“

Michael Zele:“ We seem to have some issue with the downshift blips being very inconsistent. We´re working hard to find a solution which will fix the problem for tomorow. Teething problems is what you have to expect with a new car, but that´s what practice and testing is for. We will see how it goes tomorrow.“

The Hillclimb Grand Prix of Austria is only a couple of days ahead and Zele-Racing customer and local hero Hermann Waldy will be one of the 280 (!) entries for the first European Hillclimb Championship event 2011. Final tweaks to his Lola Judd have been completed in the last days. There will be 3 practice session runs on Saturday 30th April, followed by 2 race-heats on Sunday 1st May.

Waldy, who won the Rechberg race in 2004, is optimistic: “ I have to say that i already feel comfortable. The new car, prepared by Zele-Racing is much more responsive to my inputs and easier to drive than i expected. I did some laps on a wet Pannoniaring track yesterday on slicks, and it went surprisingly well. The traction control makes life much easier for me.“

Michael Zele:“ We still have to finetune the TC and paddleshift, as well as the fuelling map, but we´re getting there. It´s difficult to say at the moment, how competitive we are, but in theory we should be on the same level as our toughest competitors. In any case we must not forget that Hermann still has to get used to his new toy and the weatherforecast says that April-rainshowers are expected all over the weekend.“

Both Hermann Waldy (A) and Marjan Smredelj (SLO) had their first outings earlier today at the Tolmezzo / Carnia proving ground in Italy. The main target on Hermann Waldy´s Lola Judd was to check all systems and try different setups for the traction control. 

A short Videoclip is available on youtube:

Hermann Waldy shakedown

Waldy: „I am really happy now, its been a long time we were working on the new car, and it´s a big relief to drive it now and realise it works, just as i hoped it will do. Zele-Racing did a magnificent job, now it´s my turn to learn how to use it properly. I still have to get used to all the buttons and switches on the steering wheel.“

Smrdelj:“ Great, it´s such a big difference to my old Lola. The B02/50 is so much easier to drive, even on this slipery surface and with circuit spec. Michelin tires. I would like to say thank you to Zele-Racing to build the car with all the attention to detail – it´s just as i expected it to be.“