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F2 - Leclerc "It was a really hard race with the safety car, trying to overtake and make my way up without losing time"

13.05.17

FIA Formula 2 - 2017 Race of Barcelona - Feature race press conference

F2, Formula 2, Barcelona, FIA, Motorsport

FIA Formula 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the press conference for today’s feature race here in Barcelona: joining us are race winner Charles Leclerc from PREMA Racing, in second we have Luca Ghiotto from RUSSIAN TIME, and in third place we have Oliver Rowland from DAMS. Charles, a great race for you today with a lot of overtaking, but the radio issue and the safety car didn’t make your life easy…

Charles Leclerc: No they didn’t! To be honest without the radio it was really hard to know what the others were doing and where we were, if we were losing time to the people in front: I first thought Oliver was going to win easily, and when he made the pitstop he was in the back! It was a really hard race with the safety car, trying to overtake and make my way up without losing time, and most of all without losing the tyres because they had to last. At 15 laps to the end I thought the race is going to be really hard [laughs], but the tyres handled it really well. Towards the end of the race we were obviously slower than Oli, but I have to thank the team for the great car they gave me.

FIA Formula 2: How do you manage to work out everything you need to know in a race like that without a radio?

Charles: I couldn’t hear them but I could speak, so at least there was that, but I wanted them to put some info I needed on the board, and in every race with high deg you need to take care of the tyres, even when overtaking, and that’s what I did.

FIA Formula 2: Luca, you had a huge push on the opening lap: how was it from your seat?

Luca Ghiotto: Yeah, I had a better exit at turn 3 so I tried, but then I locked up and I was a bit lucky not to destroy the front right, but it was not too much and I could stay up there: Alex overtook me, but he was on a different strategy. The race was quite good, of course I was quick at the end but not enough to push Charles, and I think he could push a bit more halfway through the race and I lost a bit of time overtaking Boschung and some others. I tried at the end, but it was not enough to catch him.

FIA Formula 2: It seemed to take you a while to get up to speed when you pitted: is that right?

Luca: Yeah, it took a while to get up to speed but then there was a safety car, and anyway I was probably managing the tyres too much and lost a bit of time with the overtakes. In the end the tyres were really good, I was lapping faster than I was just after the pitstop, so I think the only thing I would change about the race was to push a bit more in the beginning with the hard tyres, which maybe could have got me closer to Charles and maybe let me fight a bit with him.

FIA Formula 2: Oliver, I guess if there was something you would change about the race it would be the safety car, right?

Oliver Rowland: Yeah, I was a bit confused because most of the stuff we’ve talked about lately said it would be the VSC brought out, but it is what it is. I think we showed today that we’re very strong in the race, and I’m really happy with the pace and reckon we could maybe fight for another podium tomorrow. I did a good start and had to get through some people at the end on the soft tyres, but that was pretty straight forward. Well done to these guys though: they did a great job.

FIA Formula 2: Is it just qualifying that’s the problem now?

Oliver: Yeah it is. In testing we were fine in qualifying, so it’s a bit confusing and the track has been quite slow, I think in Formula 1 it’s about 2 seconds off the pace of last year, so it’s a little bit odd coming here and struggling a bit, but I managed to get 6th which was at least positive, because we were I think 14th before that point. To finish 3rd in the race and score good points is good but we weren’t in the fight for pole, and tomorrow we need to keep pushing and get some more points, because that’s what’s important in the early rounds.