Galip Atar Scores Points at Monza

National driver Galip Atar made a surprise start to the season by contesting the Ferrari Challenge Europe round at Monza, ahead of the opening round of the Turkish Circuit Racing Championship, which will be held in Izmir on 9-10 April.
Driving the Ferrari 458 Challenge EVO for the first time, and racing at Monza for the first time, Atar suffered a series of setbacks. A fault with the car kept the driver out of most of the test, and the repairs were still under way during qualifying, so no time was set. Despite a yellow flag being shown on the track on the very first lap of the opening race, an Italian rival hit the car at the left rear wheel, causing heavy damage. Atar managed to nurse the car back to the pit lane, but lost 17 minutes and with it any chance of a result. On the second day Atar missed qualifying after a failure in the braking system and so did not set a time, but went on to take the chequered flag in the second race with a car that had lost a great deal of power due to an electronic fault. Despite all these problems, Atar, who had entered the race for practice purposes, finished eighth, beating team-mate and last year's European Champion Bjorn Graossman along the way.
In a statement after the race, Galip Atar said: "We took part in the Ferrari race as preparation and practice ahead of the Turkish Circuit Racing Championship, which will be held at Izmir Park next week, and unfortunately we had a lot of bad luck. The faults that struck the car provided by Octane 126, one of the series' most professional teams, over the two days never allowed us to show full performance on track. In motorsport you can always run into this kind of thing. Starting on a different circuit in a different car and racing against 43 drivers, many of them champions, is an important experience. In particular, we had the chance to work with Ferrari Challenge World Champion Max Blancardi over the weekend and to share some valuable insights. Despite all the setbacks, it was gratifying that he rated my driving highly and saw me as a title contender in the championship. The Turkish Circuit Racing Championship will be far more competitive this year, and I will be in the fight for the title in the Super Group with the BMW 320TC."