Last weekend, at the German V-Prix, Phoenix Motorsport produced a stunning shock result when Thierry Xylander set the fastest time with a late lap in qualifying and, in doing so, his team became the fourteenth team to secure a pole position in Formula Virtual. Last weekend, at the German V-Prix, Phoenix Motorsport produced a stunning shock result when Thierry Xylander set the fastest time with a late lap in qualifying and, in doing so, his team became the fourteenth Formula Virtual team to secure a pole position. Phoenix’s Founder, joint Owner, and Team Principal Alex Easton was ecstatic with the minnow’s triumph and was quick to praise the competitiveness throughout the Formula Virtual field. “What a day it was on Saturday. The rainstorm on Friday night threw everything up into the air with the track conditions and we knew we’d be in with a shout of a decent grid position if we got things right, but no one expected that! It was a joint decision by Drew [Andrew Cotton – Phoenix Chief Strategist] and Thierry to go out so late as we’d all seen how the session was panning out, but then all credit has to go to Thierry for hooking it all up as well as he did; it was a great lap where he didn’t put a foot wrong. The excitement was building after the first two sectors, then when he crossed the line… wow, seeing P1 pop up was just insane and the garage erupted into absolute euphoria. Thierry really deserved a result like that; everyone knows how much he struggled last season but he’s been a totally different animal this year, really showing the quality we knew he could produce when we first took him on in 2019. Obviously, the race didn’t go anywhere near as well for him, with that midfield train absolutely scuppering any chance he might’ve had for a decent haul of points, but he still drove well so there’s plenty to take away from that. Sergio bringing home four points for eighth was fantastic too, if you’d offered us an eighth placed finish coming into this weekend, I would’ve bitten your hand off! Especially when you see how much our car struggles on the long straights – our straight-line speed is shocking compared to everyone else around us. I think you really have to applaud the competitiveness of the whole field in Formula Virtual at the moment, though. I know the conditions played a huge part but for a team like ourselves, who operate on an absolute fraction of the goliaths of the sport, to be able to pop up with a surprise result like that is fantastic. Not only that but the likes of AMR and Ingram getting their great results on Sunday, and the continued improvement of our good friends over at Lucas, as well as teams like Westwood and Arrow being able to fight with the lower reaches of the top ten; it all shows how the strength in depth really is phenomenal right now. Even when you look down to the teams like Highwind and Scuderia Meteor; they’re really not a million miles off the pace. It’s an absolute credit to everyone throughout the paddock and I’m sure the rest of the season is going to be equally as competitive.”
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