Kimball Makes Progress at Monaco

Charlie Kimball continued showing improvement in the World Series by Renault this past weekend, May 24-27, 2007, at the Monaco Grand Prix by consistently improving his lap times in every session over the weekend. Kimball took it slow in practice in order to learn the complicated circuit before setting the 7th quickest time in his group during qualification for the race. He lined up 13th on the grid, however during the race, an early incident beyond his control meant the only American in the field was unable to show his true potential over the course of the 25 laps. Kimball comes away from the weekend with the same number of championship points but he is secure in the knowledge he never put a wheel wrong during all the sessions at the challenging and glamorous street circuit.

The 22-year-old Californian spent the 45 minute free practice session on Thursday morning focusing on learning the track and the intricacies that make racing through the streets of Monte-Carlo so challenging. Even though the session was interrupted by a red flag and numerous yellows, Kimball completed the whole session and set consistently improving lap times. Even though his time was in the slowest third of the field, he felt confident that he had learned a tremendous amount before Saturday’s qualifying. The extremely limited track time over the weekend underlined the importance of ‘keeping it on the island’. The World Series Practice session was the first of the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix race weekend and as such, Kimball expected his qualifying time to drop by as much as 4 seconds after other sessions laid rubber around the circuit.

Kimball was enthusiastic after his first Monaco experience, “That was a dream come true! The first lap was surreal. I have watched cars race here since I was a little boy and now to be blasting through the streets of Monte-Carlo is fantastic. On Saturday I just need to focus on pushing harder in qualifying and making the most of the difference in grip levels of the circuit.”

After a day off on Friday for reflection and a bit of relaxation at the beach, Kimball returned to the track first thing Saturday morning to qualify for the race. With there being 30 cars entered, but only 26 allowed to start, Kimball had to be sure to bank a solid lap in order to qualify for the race start. He spent the first 15 minutes of the 25 minute qualifying session building a rhythm. The circuit improvement was obvious as Kimball’s first flying lap was over half second quicker than he ran on Thursday. As the session continued, Kimball was consistently in the top 8 of his group. With 5 minutes to go, he put a lap in that moved him up to 6th in his group, only to be pushed back to 7th seconds later by less than a tenth of second! He began his last two laps to really push and put everything together, but there were yellow caution flags for cars in the barriers on both laps. Unable to secure another quick time, Kimball would start the race from inside the seventh row, in 13th place.

Kimball spoke after qualifying, “It is a shame about the yellow flags on the last two laps. Around here every lap is worth a lot of time, especially since it is my first time here. Still, I improved 4.5 seconds from Thursday and it is my best qualifying this year. With a bit of luck on Sunday and staying out of trouble, I can still score some points.”

Unfortunately in Sunday’s race, trouble found Kimball halfway around the first lap. The American made a good start and avoided contact in St Devote, the first corner. As the grid filtered through Casino Square , in front of the world famous Monte-Carlo Casino, Kimball moved to the outside. Then as the field moved through the run down to Mirabeau corner, disaster struck. Alvaro Barba, two cars behind Kimball, ran into the back of Alejandro Nunez, who was along side Kimball. This pitched Nunez into a spin, spearing him across the narrow, barrier lined track and into the side of Kimball, throwing both cards into the Armco. A bent steering arm and front wing meant the American had to retire from his Monaco race halfway around the first lap.

“It is very disappointing not to make it around the first lap!” said Kimball afterwards. “At least I know I did everything right this weekend, I didn’t put a wheel wrong and not finishing the race was completely out of my control. I feel badly for the whole Victory Engineering team, who has worked hard all week only to be eliminated by another driver’s mistake.”

Kimball will now enjoy some time to train and catch up with sponsors in California before the World Series by Renault resumes after a 7 week break at another Grand Prix circuit, the Hungaroring, in Budapest , Hungary , July 13-15, 2007.