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Simona De Silvestro Displays Real Racing Grit At Sonoma


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SONOMA, August 23, 2010: Making her debut at the Infineon Raceway, Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing’s Simona De Silvestro was hoping to have an incident free race. After advancing into the 2nd round of qualifying for the fourth time in her career and qualifying 11th yesterday, Simona planned to build on the momentum she has enjoyed over the recent races. Despite the hard work and efforts from Simona and her crew, the race was determined by circumstances beyond their control again.

Simona started the race and immediately began protecting her position, while also gaining ground on the 10th place. After an incident involving Canadian Alex Tagliani, De Silvestro took over 10th place. The battle between Matos and Simona came to a unfortunate end when they made contact. Both drivers were able to escape without damage to either of their cars. The pit window opened and she came in for her first pit stop on lap #27. Bad luck would strike soon after her pit stop when E.J. Viso made contact with Simona from behind. The incident cost her dearly and relegated her back to the 20th spot and with a damaged wing. A yellow flag soon came out and Simona came back to the pits on lap # 34 and the crew went to work. In addition to new tires and fuel the crew replaced the front wing on the No. 78 Stargate Resistance car and adopted a new strategy. Simona would eventually come back for her third and last pit stop on lap # 47. Reentering the track in 20th spot Simona continued to focus on trying to make the best out of a bad situation. Her hard work paid off and with 15 laps left in the race she had advanced to the 16th spot. She would end up picking up three more spots by the time the checkered flag flew, finishing a respectable 13th and with only a quart of fuel left in the car.

Simona De Silvestro, Driver No. 78 -“I'm disappointed in the result. I know we did so much better than our ultimate race finish position shows. The car was great and we still had a lot of racing to do before the incident with E.J. Viso. After that I just tried to salvage whatever result I could. I feel real bad for the crew because after all of the hard work this weekend, for it to come down to an on-track incident is really disheartening. I’m looking forward to putting this behind me and concentrating on the next race where I hope to have a better result.”

Keith Wiggins, HVM Racing Team Owner – “Another top ten finish spoiled by another competitor; the same one. But we had the pace and she drove a strong race when many around her did not.”

Imran Safiulla, Team Stargate Worlds Principal - "It's really disappointing to have another good result taken away due to somebody else's stupidity. Simona and the team put on a strong performance and fought back to the best of their ability. We continue to show how strong our program is and I'm sure the results will come."