Fittipaldi Frustrated In Austin

PIETRO FITTIPALDI HAD A HARD time of it in Austin, the first round of this series in the US, where his Formula V8 3.5 championship lead was cut to 10 points with just one round remaining.

- Joe Hudson

WORLD SERIES FORMULA

V8 3.5 AUSTIN (USA)

SEPTEMBER 15-16

ROUND 8/9

He struggled to find a rhythm through the high-speed corners that make up sectors one and two and his lack of experience at the Circuit of the Americas was compounded by issues in finding a comfortable set-up.

After being denied pole position for both races by his Lotus team-mate Rene Binder and then Teo Martin driver Alex Palou – who set the same time as Fittipaldi but claimed the pole for race two because he did it first – Fittipaldi said attacking was his only option if he was to add to his tally of six wins.

But in the first race, he couldn’t deal with the pace of Binder – who had a new engine for the weekend after a failure in Mexico – and the Austrian claimed an untroubled lights-to-flag victory.