Aurelien Moll

Aurélien Moll (born 21 September 1988 in Verviers, Belgium) is a Belgian racing driver who races in the F1RWRS with the accent in his first name removed after a misspelling in one of his first races' entry list, therefore racing as Aurelien Moll. He has spent his entire career with the Equipe de Course Belge through the junior ranks, staying with the team when they joined the F1RWRS and during the buyout by Gillet. He has won three races with the team.

Early Career
Aurélien started racing at the age of 8 in 1996 after discovering motorsport two years previously. He started racing sporadically around the country in private races, with much success. His parents, themselves hardcore racing fans, began knocking on doors to finance a season in the Belgian Junior Kart championship, finishing third in his first season in 1998, the championship being dominated by Thomas De Bock, who had backing from Precision Motorsports. When De Bock moved to the Netherlands the following year, Aurélien wasted no time and won the championship two years in a row, also winning the French title in 2000.

In 2001, Moll's impressive results see him secure backing from the Equipe de Course Belge, a national racing team itself backed by the RACB, the Belgian automobile association. The team had cars in divisions from karting to Formula Renault and had seen drivers such as Marc Duez and Bertrand Gachot in its ranks. He therefore joined young drivers Jérôme d'Ambrosio and Bertrand Baguette in the team's young driver program. Aurélien proceeded to dominate both the French and German Junior Kart championships. In 2002, at the age of 14, Moll jumped straight to the FIA World Kart Championship, with he barely won, becoming the second Belgian, after the legendary François Goldstein, to win the WKC.

Car racing début
Aurélien then logically moved to Formula Ford for 2003, moving to Great Britain. In Oulton Park, for his first race, the organizers misspelled his first name, ommitting the accent and turning it to Aurelien. Moll then began regularly using the misspelling in his name when entering events, à-la-Jean Max. Moll won the championship and the Formula Ford Festival after a long battle with Dave Simpson. He moved to British Formula Renault in 2004. The vast difference between the cars was a setback for Moll, who found it hard to adapt and was unable to score more than a couple of podiums at Oulton Park and Snetterton, finishing seventh in the championship. In 2005, the RACB gave the Equipe de Course Belge a bigger budget. Coupled to Moll's acclimatisation to the series, they barely won the title, with a two point lead over Jolyon Palmer.

Unsuccesful in Formula 3, moves to WSR
This fantastic result pushed the team to move up to British Formula 3. The team had never experienced racing at such a high level before, and was unable to crack the top 5 all year, though Moll's regular points scores got him up to twelfth overall. After this relative failure, the team moved to the spec World Series by Renault, in the 2.0 category, for 2007. Aurelien was immediately on the pace, finishing fourth. He had won the most races, but the faster cars were proving troublesome for him, irrational driving costing him valuable points. The encouraging results secured the team more sponsors, but cleaner driving was demanded from Aurelien. In order to eradicate his frequent mistakes, he spent the entire winter testing and working on his driving style. This payed off, as he ended up finishing second in the category in 2008, a couple of mechanical failures costing him the title to a more reliable Giedo van der Garde.

However, his success combined to past team mate Bertrand Baguette's regular good results and Jérôme d'Ambrosio's defecting to a simple RACB sponsored DAMS in GP2 gave Aurelien the opportunity to race in the 2009 Word Series by Renault 3.5 with the promise of a competitive car. ECB didn't disappoint, and the car proved to be a championship contender throughout the year. Sadly, Moll suffered a string of mechanical failures and driver errors in the middle of the season, but was still able to clinch fifth place.

Promise in WSR turns into a GP2 seat
With a new series called the F1RWRS being set up for 2010, ECB were interested in joining the series. However, 9 manufacturers had already entered in addition to the privateer Pacchia team. This left the Belgians to wait for 2011, the relatively low cost of the series compared to Formula 1 being especially attractive. In the meantime, ECB were willing to rent Moll to a GP2 team interested in the Aurelien's services. Team Rapax quickly signed him alongside Pastor Maldonado, who would eventually finish third that season. Aurelien, meanwhile, had a fantastic début season, racking up five wins and taking the championship with three races to spare. He was ready.

After a rocky start in the F1RWRS, things are looking dim...
ECB finally managed to secure an entry in the F1RWRS for 2011, thanks to the introduction of a pre-qualifying session. Moll was the team's sole driver throughout the season. He qualified for his début at the Norisring for the 2011 F1RWRS Bavarian Grand Prix, but became the first ever driver to record a penalty in the series after jumping the start, earning a drive-through. He eventually finished a respectable 13th. His race at the German Grand Prix was anonymous, finishing 15th. Worse, he then fails to pre-qualify five times in a row, a series record.

...but then comes Brands Hatch
In Brands Hatch, Aurelien finally managed to qualify for his third race. A daring strategy ended up turning out beautifully, pitting very early on and eventually taking a brilliant maiden victory, a performance he magnificently repeated two races later at Adelaide. In Bathurst, for the Australian Grand Prix, Aurelien was caught up with seven other drivers in the first lap pile-up, and was counted as a non-starter for the re-start. He then took a satisfactory fourth place at the following race at Eastern Creek. After that, however, he was unable to score more points. Still, his two victories were enough to secure seventh place in the Championship!

A new year, a team mate, no points
In 2012, the team was full of confidence, believing that they would hit the ground running with Moll and his new team mate and old karting rival Thomas De Bock. The team was also renamed to Ecurie Nationale Belge, securing a works engine deal with Gillet. The outlook was positive during pre-season testing, th eteam always at the front of the time sheets. The season itself was a different story. While De Bock was able to score a couple of podiums towards the end of the year, including a win at Bathurst, Aurelien was stuck at the back of the grid throughout the season. Unable to find any speed with the car, he failed to pre-qualify seven times to De Bock's four and his best finish was a ninth place at the absolute carnage that was the Luxembourg Grand Prix, where he retired but completed enough laps to be classified. Apart from this, the high point of the season was tenth place at the Indy 500 at the end of the year.

After the Gillet buyout, the Moll breakout
For the 2013 season, ECB, looking for more and more performance, sold a greater part in the team to Tony Gillet, who renamed the team to Gillet-Ecurie Nationale Belge and becoming team principal. This occurred just prior to the major rule changes in the F1RWRS, designed to provide more consistent results for teams. This change also brought in severe unreliability for most of the teams. The team ended up with a good car from the start, and Aurelien took advantage of his rivals' unreliablity to secure third place at the Tasman Grand Prix. After three consecutive retirements, Aurelien then took a brilliant third career win at Monaco! Fourth place in France and two further third places in Germany and Portugal ensured that he took a provisional second place in the drivers' championship behind a dominating Mark Dagnall. However, retirements due to accidents at Akrotiri Bay and Macau have now dropped him to third place behind a more consistent Rhys Davies and ahead of his team mate Thomas De Bock, who has now scored two victories for the team this season.

Complete Formula Renault 3.5 Series results
(Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP2 Series results
(Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)