Evans, Gelael and Marciello discuss the GP2 Feature Race

GP2 Series: Welcome to today’s Press Conference following GP2 Series Feature Race in Spielberg. Joining us is race winner Mitch Evans for Pertamina Campos Racing. In second place, we have Sean Gelael also for Pertamina Campos Racing and in third place we have Raffaele Marciello for RUSSIAN TIME. Mitch, congratulations on this victory. Were you expecting this result today?

Mitch Evans: Not really. It was really a bizarre race. The qualifying session was good, we were quite strong. We were not that fast compared to the others but I managed to qualify P10 which was good for the Feature Race. At the start, I dropped a few places, I think around four or five. I started on the Option and I think that pretty much all the field started with on Prime. I knew I had to keep calm so I could make a good stint and then go on the Prime tyres and try to recover some of the lost ground from the start. I wasn’t attacking too much when I was on the Prime and the car felt pretty strong. I had a similar pace to Pierre and Antonio and then it started to rain and I thought it was going to be a complete disaster as I thought we were going to do two pit stops and lose over thirty seconds. Fortunately, it only rained on half of the track which saved us. Sean and I were massively fast compared to the others in those conditions, I’m not sure why. After the safety car and the red flag, I was theoretically P1. I just wanted to get a good restart and bring the cars home in 1-2.

GP2 Series: What does this win mean to you after a delicate start of the season?Mitch: For the team and I, it’s been a tough start of the season but we’ve never stopped working. But the cars today were faultless. Whether we were lucky today with the weather, I don’t know. But you really can’t take our pace away from us. Hopefully we can continue this form for the rest of the season. A win in any season is always special and especially this first one with Pertamina Campos Racing. To get a 1-2 is incredible for the whole team and our sponsors. I hope our dark days are now over. We are here to win and unfortunately we haven’t been in a place to win. It’s hard to be consistent in this Series but hopefully it’s a turning point for the rest of the year.GP2 Series: You will be starting from P8 tomorrow. What can we expect?Mitch Evans: I’m not too sure. I think it’s hard to compare our pace to our rivals. But I felt really strong in the car today especially on the Prime. It’s going to be a hard race on the Soft compounds but I think if the car is working like it did today tomorrow, I think we will in good shape.GP2 Series: Congratulations again and good luck for tomorrow. Sean, P2 today; your first GP2 podium finish. How does it feel?Sean Gelael: It’s amazing! I had a disappointing qualifying yesterday, I should have been closer to Mitch but I did a lot of mistakes. However, we knew our pace was strong. But starting from P18, I knew it was going to be a tough race and that it would be difficult to score points. I think we were P14 after the first lap and I thought we could fight for the top ten. Then the rain showed up. We weren’t too sure if our strategy would work because we were not expecting too much rain. But thankfully it didn’t rain in every parts of the circuit. Then the Safety Car came out when Pierre went off at Turn 1. My pace was really quick then. I overtook Mitch but I made a mistake in Turn 2 which probably cost me the win. But it’s still a good result and I’m happy with that and hopefully tomorrow, it is going to be good as today.GP2 Series: It’s a 1-2 for Campos today. What does this result mean for the team?Sean: It’s amazing for the team. Finally, all of our efforts have paid off. . We had troubles during the pre-season and since the beginning of it. We never stopped working, and it has finally paid off. I think we made a big step with the car especially in terms of pace. But we always have to improve. I’m truly happy for the team and for the sponsors as well. It’s a great result for the whole team and it shows how much we’ve worked to improve a little bit more after each race. It’s a gift to them!GP2 Series: You will be starting from P7 tomorrow. What will be the plan?Sean: I think we will just try to do our best like today when we pushed one lap after the other. We made the best of our opportunities and I think we will try to do the same for tomorrow. Obviously, it’s going to be harder without the pitstop strategy and everything but you never know. It’s GP2! The answer is never yes or no, it’s never black or white so…let’s see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully, we will score some solid points again.GP2 Series: Good job again. Raffaele, P3. It’s another podium finish for you this season, but obviously until the red flag you were in a position to win this race. Are you disappointed?Raffaele Marciello: When you fight for the victory and you don’t win, it’s always a bit disappointing but we scored again some strong points in the standings. Obviously, we are fighting to be on the top of the standings so with all our podiums, we are there. I’m quite happy with the result. Still, we need to improve our pace a little bit because we don’t make any mistakes but we are still not the fastest. Until now our strategies worked pretty well so we can be proud and hope to improve a bit.GP2 Series: Tell us how your race went…Raffaele: It went quite smoothly. I wasn’t involved in today’s race incidents so I’m happy with that. I saw that at Turn 1 many drivers made contact. I was able to pass Luca. Then when it was starting to rain, I felt quite confident. I was fighting with Antonio and we had a nice fight. I managed to keep my tyres alive until the red flag. But of course, after that, I knew I had lost the win so it was a bit disappointing. Still, I knew that I could pocket another podium so I did nothing silly and just focused on the last ten laps. P3 is still a good result.GP2 Series: Looking at the drivers’ standings, you are now leading ahead of tomorrow’s race, three points ahead of Nato. But he will be starting from the front row tomorrow whereas you will be starting from P6. What will be your goal?Raffaele: I don’t think we have to look at the drivers’ standings for now. It’s too soon in the season and it means nothing. We are all very close to each other. For now, we need to focus on the races, and make no mistake. For tomorrow, the goal will be to fight again for another podium. I don’t know what the weather will be tomorrow as it is quite unpredictable here so it’s either we win everything, or we lose everything. We’ll see.


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