In his first race with Emil Frey Racing the Swiss driver just misses out on the Top-10 in Barcelona
Alex conquered 11th place after climbing through the field in the final round of the Blancpain GT Series on the Montmelò circuit in Barcelona, with the Swiss driver and his teammates Stephane Ortelli and Norbert Siedler making up no less than 37 places. Signed by Emil Frey Racing to drive the team's Jaguar G3, Alex made immediately impressed with the ease with which on both a dry and wet track in free practice he got to grips and found a rhythm with the new car. However, during qualifying with Siedler at the wheel a broken driveshaft relegated the Jaguar G3 to the back on the grid in 48th place. During the race Alex took over from Ortelli with the car in 27th place, taking it up to 14th place before being replaced for the third stint by Siedler who drove it through to the chequered flag.
Alex Fontana
“This was such an intense race. Barcelona is a circuit that’s very close to my heart having won here my first title in Formula 3 Open in 2011 and on which I’ve had the pleasure of driving many cars such as the Formula 2 and the GP3 for the first time. Let’s hope then that having debuted in the Emil Frey Racing Jaguar is auspicious for the future. The team is highly professional and the work that has been done to make a relatively dated car competitive is truly incredible. Unfortunately, a problem in qualifying denied us a finish in the points, but we had great pace, up there with the top five. I’d like to thank Emil Frey for this great opportunity and my teammates Stephane and Norbert; we gave our utmost throughout and as well as doing a really good job on track, we had fun and created a great atmosphere. So my 2017 GT season has drawn to a close, but I’ll not have time to get bored because now I’ll be focussing on the end of the season in the Chinese Touring Car Championship with KIA Motors, working on the development of the K3 project.”