Youngest driver in Toyota Racing Series misses out on deserved top result in grand finale -
First year car racer Shahaan Engineer delivered a great performance in the final round of the 2012 Toyota Racing Series – the prestigious 57th New Zealand Grand Prix – at Manfeild Autocourse on Sunday, 12th February, but the hard work was undone when his car sustained a broken bolt on the front wing.
Difficulties in qualifying left the 16-year-old Indian with a literal mountain to climb in the weekend’s three races, not least the demanding 35-lap finale. Even so, the youngster carved his way through the order superbly from 18th on the grid into the top nine as he aimed to better his top six and top seven performances from rounds one and four of the season respectively.
Approaching two-thirds race distance in the blue riband event, while closing in on the two cars ahead, the youngster noticed his wing had become dislodged and shortly after that the mechanical warning flag was shown meaning he had to pit for repairs from ninth position.
“I felt my front wing bounce and saw the mechanical flag with my number on it whilst in the thick of things”, explained Shahaan, “The most difficult thing I’ve done in the Toyota Racing Series was to drive into the pits knowing my hard earned top ten position was gone!”
Racing against time, the ETEC Motorsport team – in particular Shahaan’s race engineer Mike Olsen and lead mechanic Murray – did a fantastic job to replace the damaged front wing bolts in less than 30 seconds and sent the car racing rookie back out into the Grand Prix to try and earn valuable points. This he achieved with 15th place, enabling him to maintain 13th position in the championship just a few points shy of drivers with Formula 3 and GP3 Series experience.
Reflecting on the season finale, Olsen said: “I knew Shahaan was disappointed when he came in, but our job was to send him out as fast as we could. Although he lost several places by coming in he was out, and on it again, and pulled in massively closer to the pack to make up the lost time by the end of the grueling 40-minute Grand Prix.”
“I’d like to thank the ETEC team for the best experience of my life so far over these last five weeks in New Zealand”, said Shahaan, “We’ve tested, qualified and raced for 21 days and it’s been a fantastic time. We were all one big family by the end of it – I’ll definitely miss the series and the ETEC guys.”
Impressively, Shahaan didn’t cause a single red flag across the 25 practice sessions – many having taken place in inclement weather – and finished 14 of the 15 races contested. The only race in which he wasn’t classified was the third encounter at Invercargill which was affected by severe hailstorms.
Having returned to the family home in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Shahaan will travel to the UK in a week to begin his pre-season testing programme ahead of the 2012 Certina Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship where he will drive for reigning champion team Fortec Motorsports.
