Pepe Martí ‘rescues’ the weekend at his home circuit by scoring points in Sunday’s feature race, including the fastest lap.
The Spanish driver heads to Austria following a significant improvement in his car's performance and hopes to continue working in the same direction.
"Although it has been a difficult weekend, in terms of performance and procedure, I think it has been one of the best weekends of the last few races."
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya hosted the sixth round of the FIA Formula 2 season this weekend, which is reaching the halfway point of the championship. Pepe Martí eagerly participated in his home Grand Prix, which ended positively by scoring points after four learning rounds where he couldn’t score. The 19-year-old driver has shown a notable improvement in performance despite the adversities. "Although it has been a difficult weekend, in terms of performance and procedure, I think it has been one of the best weekends of the last few races."
On Friday, in the qualifying session, expectations were not met after the good feelings in free practice, and Martí qualified in fourteenth position. This result complicated the weekend's development on a circuit that is difficult for overtaking.
“The first practice on Friday, I would say, was a very clean session. We had good feelings and were in a good position for qualifying. However, the qualifying session didn’t go as we expected. In the first run, we suffered many problems, and in the second, we could improve, but it wasn’t enough. The fact that the first run didn’t go well penalised me. Here in Barcelona, we only have one lap per set of tyres, and it’s tough. We qualified outside the positions we deserved. Fourteenth, and starting so far back makes the weekend very complicated,” he explains.
In Saturday's sprint race, Martí had a reasonable start but had to face tricky situations on the track. "In the first lap, I lost a few positions. I found myself twice side by side with three drivers, being the one in the middle, and I focused on not crashing. On both occasions, I had to let them pass,” he explains. Despite these setbacks, the Barcelona driver remained focused, although overtaking opportunities at the Circuit were limited.
In Sunday's feature race, where more points are awarded for the weekend, Pepe had a challenging start with several accidents ahead of him, forcing him to dodge obstacles and go through the gravel, dropping to eighteenth position. However, his tenacity allowed him to climb positions and 'save the furniture' in his home Grand Prix, crossing the finish line in tenth place, which turned into ninth due to another driver’s penalty. Additionally, he secured the fastest lap of the race, adding another point, making a total of 3.
“Today has been a bit better. The start wasn’t great; then there were accidents ahead of me that I had to dodge and go through the gravel. I lost positions and dropped to eighteenth place. From there, I tried to climb back to scrape some points from the situation. We extended the stint on hard tyres, which we decided to start with. But we didn’t have pace until we pitted for the soft tyres. The pit stop was good, and from that moment, I felt very good, we were fast, and we could make very good overtakes. I climbed six positions to finish crossing the line in tenth place.”
Despite the setbacks, Martí was optimistic about his car’s and team’s performance. "It’s clear that we have speed, especially in the key moments of the race," he states. "We will keep working to try to understand what we need to improve and keep making steps forward.”
The Red Bull Junior Team driver heads to Austria for the second of three consecutive rounds: "Austria is Red Bull's home, and I hope to have some good races and hopefully keep scoring points and growing in the championship, which is the most important thing," concluded Martí, focused on continuing his progress in his first Formula 2 season.
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