Simona De Silvestro caps off a critical weekend by winning the race and Frankie Muniz overcomes injury to take the sixth place finishing spot.
After leading the charge on Saturday by taking the pole position award Team Stargate Worlds' Simona de Silvestro arrived on Sunday at Trois Rivieres, Quebec for the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres determined to finish what she had started and win the race, at the same time hoping to propel herself further in the points race against the Newman Wachs duo of John Edwards and Jonathan Summerton. Her teammate Frankie Muniz, suffering from torn ligaments and a chipped bone in his left hand, was just as determined to not allow his condition to interfere with his racing.
De Silvestro took the green flag start of the race and immediately put a gap between her and the second place of John Edwards. She extended that lead by 1.5 seconds on lap # lap 2. From that point on her lead grew substantially. De Silvestro flawlessly executed the 10-turn, 1.521-mile temporary street circuit and made no mistakes. She did not relent and by lap #12 she had cracked the 59 second lap mark and saw her lead grow to over 5 seconds. The blistering pace continued, but by lap # 39, De Silvestro decided to take a cautious approach and slow down her pace. The approach allowed John Edwards to slowly creep up on Simona but she was not in any danger of losing the lead. With the jubilant Team Stargate Worlds crew cheering her on, De Silvestro took the checkered flag and solifified her fourth win of the year and at the same time extend her points lead to 21 points.
Starting the race in the eighth spot Frankie Muniz begun his race and quickly staved off an attack by the ninth place of James Winslow. Muniz maintained his position for most of the race and increased his lead over Winslow by 5 seconds by lap # 19. Muniz set his aim for the seventh place of Borja Garcia and made his move to overtake the Spaniard. By now Muniz began feeling the effects of his injury but despite the pain he went on to chase the sixth place of Frederic Vervisch. Vervisch would eventually be overtaken by Muniz on lap #38. The exhausted and elated Muniz had overcome the painful circumstance of his hand and managed to reel in a sixth place finish.
Frankie Muniz, Driver No. 77 - “Overall I am happy with how the day went. It was a hard race and with the hand the way that it is I am satisfied with the results. We'll leave here with our sixth place and focus on our next race and hopefully we can get our top-5 finish. Congratulations to Simona for her win and thanks to Team Stargate Worlds, our sponsors, and the Atlantic Series, as well as Mazda and Cooper tires.”
Simona De Silvestro, Driver No. 78 - “We had a excelent weekend. I am pretty happy with our accomplishments including breaking the track record yesterday during qualifying and then winning the race today and becoming the first female to win a race at this track. I am so grateful for this weekend. It really was a special weekend. My thanks go to the team and our sponsors for their support and I am very excited about the remaining races”
Imran Safiulla and Shane Seneviratne, Principals Of Team Stargate Worlds- “We made history here this weekend! This was a fantastic effort and we are both sincerely appreciative of every single member of our team. Simona is growing in stature and it's good to see her evolve each day. Frankie displayed great tenacity this whole weekend and deserves a pat on the back .”
About Team Stargate Worlds:
Team Stargate Worlds entered the 2009 Atlantic Championship season in partnership with US RaceTronics with one of the world's most talented female race car drivers Simona De Silvestro and Hollywood star turned serious professional racer Frankie Muniz. For more information about Team Stargate Worlds please visit www.usracetronics.com. The Team Stargate Worlds Twitter page can be found at http://twitter.com/TeamSGW while the team’s Facebook page can be found at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70120788804
