FIA Formula 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the press conference for today’s FIA Formula 2 feature race here in Monaco: joining us are race winner Oliver Rowland from DAMS, in second place we have Artem Markelov from RUSSIAN TIME, and in third we have Nobuharu Matsushita from ART Grand Prix. Oliver, it’s your first win at this level: how does it feel?
Oliver Rowland: It’s been a while coming! [laughs] Obviously it feels great, and to be honest I didn’t expect it so much after the start because it was quite processional, but the safety cars can always cause anything around here! It feels good, and to win here is mega special: every year I’ve been here I’ve been slightly unlucky, whether it was last year in GP2 or previously, and even in karting I seized here with 2 laps to go when I was leading! It’s never been that kind but I think today repaid me, but right now I can’t explain how good it feels to win this.
FIA Formula 2: What was going through your mind when you took over the lead and were pulling away from these guys here?
Oliver: I think there was 12-13 laps to go, and immediately I pulled quite a big gap and thought okay, just bring it home, and my engineer was telling me to manage the tyres a little bit, because with the super softs we were not sure how long they would last. So I was starting to manage a bit, and I noticed within 2 laps that Artem was coming pretty quickly, and I thought come on, leave me alone! [laughs] I wanted him to give up so I started to push again, and the gap kind of stayed the same: it’s weird, because the last 2 laps you automatically go slower and then make more mistakes because you know it’s so close, and you know the only thing that can stop it is a mistake. You become a bit nervous, start to hit the kerbs a bit harder and turn twice, silly little things like that, but I knew that unless I made a big mistake that it was mine with 2 or 3 laps to go, and that I was going to win.
FIA Formula 2: You’ve closed up a lot in the championship with Charles failing to finish: does that make the day a bit more perfect?
Oliver: Yeah, it does. I said yesterday that at this time of year it’s all about getting as many points as you can, making sure that you’re there and can build on everything, build the confidence within the team, and to try to make a good season for them and for me: it’s important to keep bringing back points, to build this confidence so that in the second half of the year we can really push on, win the feature races and so on. So it’s a positive, and with Charles doing a fantastic job around here, especially as a rookie, I think he’s pretty unlucky with what happened to him: it’s a credit to him and to Alex [Albon] as rookies because they did a really good job, and it’s nice to see them pressuring us older guys! [laughs]
FIA Formula 2: Congratulations. Artem, it’s your first time back on the podium since your win in Bahrain: at the restart were you thinking you could possibly get past Oliver for the win?
Artem Markelov: I was trying to do that, but he just went away too quickly! [laughs] And then I was trying to save the tyres to the end of the race, and it was a quite a tough race: I was trying to push to the end of the race to maybe take the fastest lap or to push Oli, but I had no chance!
FIA Formula 2: You won here last year and got another podium now: is there something about Monaco that suits your driving style?
Artem: I’m more patient this year, or trying to be more patient! Last year maybe I was more aggressive, trying to push on every lap, but this year I am waiting, trying to get to the end and push.
FIA Formula 2: Congratulations. Nobu, you made a good start and got ahead of Artem: how crucial was that to your race?
Nobuharu Matsushita: Yes, my start was very good and I got ahead of Artem immediately, he made a mistake maybe, and I was ahead of him to the pitstop, but we had a little mistake in the pitstop and he overtook me. After that I was right behind him and tried to push him, but I couldn’t.
FIA Formula 2: You didn’t seem to have the pace in the closing laps: was it a case of making do with the podium?
Nobuharu: In the end the options were a bit difficult for me: the degradation was too much, these two guys were quicker than me, and we need to look at this and think about what we can do to improve next time.
Source : GP2.com
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