USA’s Tveter Maintains Championship Position After Challenging Weekend in Most, Czech Republic

MOST, Czech Republic, Sept. 2 — After a wild weekend of Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup action at the Most Autodrom, Ryan Tveter maintained his eighth-place standing in the overall championship.

The young American finished 12th and 11th in 25-minute races there Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, respectively. Sunday afternoon’s race was originally scheduled to be run on Sunday morning, but it was postponed a few hours due to heavy rain. A similar race that was to have been held Sunday afternoon was postponed even more, as it has been added to the card at the season finale Sept. 19-21 at Nurburgring, Germany.

Through it all Tveter, of Oyster Bay, N.Y., maintained eighth in the driver championship with the Game Ready Injury Treatment Systems #16 prepared by the team that leads the team point standings, Josef Kaufmann Racing. Tveter’s car is also supported by Switzerland’s Autobau conference center and racing museum. He’s now 24 points behind one of his teammates, Sweden’s Gustav Malja, who is currently seventh, and 10 points ahead of the driver who is currently ninth, Great Britain’s Jake Hughes.

Tveter started 14th and finished in 12th position in Saturday’s 15-lap race, but it was far from uneventful.

“Unfortunately I had pit-limiter failure on the formation lap,” Tveter said. “It was stuck on when I started the engine on the grid, so I was limited to 60 kilometers per hour. I was finally able to get it off by fully resetting the car and turning the power completely off. But by the time I fully reset the car on the formation lap I was last, and was relegated to the back of the grid for the start.”

He wasn’t last for long, however. It took him only one lap to vault from 25th to 17th.

The challenges were only beginning, however. On lap two Tveter and another driver had contact in the first chicane. They both spun, the yellow flag waved, and Tveter was back in 23rd position. Fortunately a safety car for another incident closed the field back up and Tveter got ready for the restart.

After the restart, with some passes and some attrition he was in 13th place right after the halfway point of the race. Near the end, working lap 12, both he and Josef Zaruba passed Gregor Ramsay, which moved Tveter into 12th place. He set his fastest lap of the race on the following lap, and he took the checkered flag on lap 15 still in 12th, 0.556 of a second behind Zaruba.

Due to rain, Sunday afternoon’s race began under a full-course caution with Tveter in 13th position. That race also ended under yellow following a spin by Stefan Riener. In between Tveter moved up two spots and finished in 11th place.

“It started raining on the grid and the track was already a bit wet, so we changed to wet tires immediately,” Tveter said. “The start was behind the safety car. I made a position on [Martin] Kodric a couple laps in and then was chasing my teammate Louis [Delétraz] before the safety car came out.

“I was looking forward to the restart, as my pace was very good at the time. Unfortunately the race didn’t restart and ended behind the safety car, so I crossed the line in P11 and scored some more solid points to maintain my position in the championship, which was good considering the number of challenges we encountered.”

Tveter’s next event is a Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup weekend Sept. 12-14 at Hungaroring, Hungary. That series also appears at Paul Ricard in France Sept. 26-28 and at Jerez, Spain Oct. 17-19.

For more information on Tveter see his website at RyanTveter.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.