Kiwi-born Chris van der Drift (21) had hoped the opening race of the new International Formula Master at the Valencia (Spain) circuit, would give him the long-awaited opportunity to show his talent at driving racing cars.
However, this was not to be as Van der Drift experienced mystifying electronic problems from the time he first went out onto the track in the new race car. The problems persisted throughout the official two-day test session, into the official weekend’s test sessions on Friday, and resulted in a DNF in the first race held on the Saturday after completing just seven laps of the 19-lap race.
Nevertheless, while the car was going, Van der Drift made a huge impression, making up 11 places in the opening laps of race 1 and then making up 20 places in race 2, to finish in tenth.
This performance was all the more remarkable, in view of the few laps Van der Drift had driven with the car performing properly and thus little time to fine-tune the handling and set-up of the car.
With the intermittent electronic problem, Van der Drift was still able to turn in the ninth and seventh fastest lap times in the test sessions, but then the electronic problem became worse in official qualifying where he was in 23rd place.
In the first ever International Formula Master race, Van Der Drift quickly passed 11 cars and then another one to be in 11th position when the electrical gremlin intervened on Lap 7 and cut his engine power. Van der Drift now goes into the history books as the first driver to record a DNF!
The DNF meant Van der Drift had to start the second race from last (31st) place, and what a start! In the first lap he passed 20 cars to reach 11th place. Then it was up to 9th by lap 8. However, the lack of time to find the best set-up meant he began to suffer from tyre pressure/handling issues and dropped back to finish tenth – but there were no signs of the electronic problem after his hard-worked JD Motorsport crew had changed virtually everything on the car.
Frustrating – especially when Van der Drift’s team-mate, Kasper Anderson, won the second race.
“I experienced major electronic problems that destroyed any chances of scoring any points. I was able to make up a lot of positions in race 1 until my car stopped – if I had finished that race, my whole weekend’s results could have been very different. The driver behind me at the time I stopped went on to finish sixth. I had nothing to lose in race 2 so pushed like crazy and with no big problems with the car, I could easily pass heaps of cars. I could hardly believe I was in tenth place after just one lap!
“I just hope all my problems are now finished as I am looking forward to the next race at Pau, France, which is a street race – in two weeks time. It will be very important to me.
“Special thanks to my JD Motorsports team, and especially my mechanic, Alberto and my engineer, Roberto, who put in such a huge effort to fix my problem,” said Van der Drift.

Points : Kasper Anderson 14, Jerome D’Ambrosio 11, Oliver Campos 11, Salvatore Gatto 10, Johnny Cecotto Jr 10.

Next round : Pau, France June 2-3.

Chris van der Drift is proudly supported by Racing Pool, Valvoline, National Meats, BMW Ekris, Momo.