Dramatic weekend prevents Fielding scoring
first podium

Chesterfield-born Josh Fielding experienced the turmoil of highs and lows last weekend during Rounds 5 and 6 of the F4 Eurocup. After conducting a successful test session on Wednesday with members of SG Formula, the team well-known for having guided junior Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne to European Championships in the past, Fielding was given a huge confidence boost going into the weekend.

Fielding managed to take away a lot from Friday’s 30 minute practice session on his first visit to the street circuit of Pau, South-West France. After the session Josh was in buoyant mood: ‘I absolutely love street circuits, especially after having such a good result at a similar street circuit in St Petersburg, Florida last year, so I really hope Pau will be similar.’

Josh took his confidence from his strong build-up into the afternoon’s qualifying session, and after the five fast laps he was on pole position. However, Fielding was eventually pushed down to ninth position to start his first race, behind Aurélien Panis, son of former French F1 driver Oliver Panis.
Josh started Race 1 solidly, maintaining his grid position after two laps. But, after an unexpected safety car period, Fielding decided to make his move on Panis in eighth position, which went slightly awry and lead into an incident and ‘DNF’ for Fielding, Panis and former championship leader, Pierre Sancinena. After the race, Fielding said of the incident, ‘It obviously wasn’t a great result today. I made a move which I thought I was able to pull off, but wasn’t. It’s time to forget about it and move on to be ready for the race tomorrow’.

Josh’s starting place was ninth position again for Race Two. He seemed to have put the incident of the day before to the back of his mind, and after some excellent manoeuvres and controlled aggression Josh was up to fourth after eleven laps. Josh’s team were extremely confident of his pace to provide himself and the team with their first podium of the 2011 season, when a driver behind collided with the back end of Fielding’s car, putting Josh into the barriers and out of the race.

After getting back to his team in the pits, Josh said, ‘I’m really disappointed about what happened in this race, as there was nothing I could do about it. I feel that I really proved myself in this race that I can be up there challenging for podiums, as I think I could have given a serious fight for second and third places today. So I’m really looking forward to the challenge of Val de Vienne, as I’m sure I can carry through the pace I had here.’

Fielding will next be competing in the F4 Eurocup at Val de Vienne, located in Western France, on 25th and 26th June.