Philipp Eng praised the ‘perfect teamwork’ of Romeo Ferraris and M1RA as he claimed victory on his first weekend in the all-electric PURE ETCR series in Copenhagen.
Whilst Eng’s rivals had experience of the previous two ETCR events, the Austrian went to the street race in Denmark with significantly less experience of the new breed of touring car racers.
Despite that, the 31-year-old was able to be on top form all weekend, from setting the Pool B pace in free practice on Friday through to winning his SuperFinal on Sunday, the only blot on his copybook being losing out to Augusto Farfus in Pool B’s Round 2 battle on Saturday.
On Sunday, Eng topped the time trial in the morning to claim pole for the six-car SuperFinal, which he led from lights-to-flag, despite initial pressure from Tom Chilton.
The former DTM racer was delighted with his performance, and he also paid tribute to the Italian team which built the cars, in particular to Aldo Cerruti, who was a key figure for Romeo Ferraris, and who passed away last month.
“I’m super happy, for me personally of course, but more for the team – they really deserved this double victory this weekend,” said Eng.
“I can tell you that everybody at Romeo Ferraris is working flat-out. We had a very good test day a few weeks ago where we prepared for this event. We did some changes to the car which worked very well.
“Also with Luca, it is super good that we are sharing the car and we are always moving in the same direction in terms of set-up, so we are just pushing each other forward, pushing the team forward, and I’m very happy.
“It’s been an emotional day and victory for the team with the passing of Aldo, so I think we are all very happy to dedicate this victory to him.”
Eng’s team-mates Luca Filippi, Rodrigo Baptista and Oliver Webb have all helped to get him up to speed at the event.
“I only drove the car once before coming here,” added Eng. “Like I already said, it was the perfect teamwork; the team prepared me very well for this.
“Obviously, when you are very new to the series you have to dig into the details again, into the specifics.
“The weekend format is very unique and extremely cool, and I absolutely love it. But I also had to understand the whole picture and see the big picture.
“My teammates Luca, Rodrigo and Oli were an open book, and they shared all their secrets with me, in terms of how to drive the car as quick as possible and how to approach the weekend, so I didn’t really feel like a rookie before coming here because I was very well prepared.
“Now I am sitting here as the winner, which is very cool.”