AT MONACO

Max had an eventful weekend in Monaco where he had his first race in World Series Renault. He experienced mechanical problems during practice and an incident packed race, but brought his Comtec racing run car home in 19th place. The objective for Max was to learn the Monaco circuit and he achieved that, ending up enjoying his first experience of the historic Grand Prix track.

His first experience of the circuit on Thursday morning was, however, an unfortunately short affair. Taking to the track for the one and only practice session, he completed only 6 laps before a gearchange problem forced a return to the pits. The gearbox actuator had failed, later traced to a faulty component, and Max’s opportunity to learn the circuit was over. At the time he had been 5th fastest out on track, but that was no consolation as he had missed out on so many more laps.

“Now I’ve got to go into qualifying not knowing the track,” a very frustrated Max exclaimed.

He could only sit out and watch the practice session and felt he hadn’t really learned much in the handful of laps he had managed;

“I didn’t have a chance to get any heat into the tyres, the circuit’s pretty filthy and there was so little grip. I never pushed to find the braking points, so that’s going to be a big challenge on Saturday now as I’ll have to explore them in qualifying. Not ideal at all, but that’s the way it is.”

Saturday’s qualifying session was tough, but Max rose to the challenge and did a very good job, again having to cope with a faulty gearbox. The car was OK initially with the problem materialising half-way through the session and forcing Max into the pits. The Comtec team managed to effect a temporary fix and when Max rejoined, he was able to put another couple of laps in before the problem returned again.

With the gear selection issues and having still only done 20 laps of the Monaco track, it was encouraging to see Max set the 18th fastest lap time of the 26 drivers. He had set a target and although he was disappointed to have had the problems, he was quite happy with his performance;

“I thought after not having much running on Thursday that I wanted to get down to a 1 minute 28 sec. lap and I managed that, even with the gear problem. I also struggled with the brakes, they had no real ‘bite’. So looking at the times, I was less than 2 seconds off the pole position time, I’m pleased with that.”

Max’s race started superbly with a great getaway from the grid. He managed to avoid cars going off at the first corner and gained places around the opening lap to cross the line in 15th place. Max had looked comfortable in the early stages of the race before he got a little out of shape through the swimming pool section and clouted a kerb. That bent a steering arm on Max’s car and he initially thought the car was too badly damaged to continue as he explained;

“The steering was pretty out of shape so I had to back off. The team told me on the radio that it would be OK and to carry on. I had a bit of a moment braking for the chicane after the tunnel and had to miss out the chicane. The officials gave me a drive through penalty for that so eventually I lost loads of places.”

Max pressed on, lapping the Monaco circuit over half a second faster than he had in qualifying, and showed how much he had learned the track. He completed the 25 laps and took the flag in 19th place.

It had been an eventful debut, but Max had enjoyed himself. After the race he talked about the experience;

“That was actually good fun. I know the result was disappointing but I had only come here to learn the track. Any real chance of a good result was taken away in practice and qualifying with the problems I had. Anyway, I have definitely got experience of Monaco; I had a pretty clear track in front of me because of the drive-through so I could really explore the limits. I went quicker than before so I’m pleased with that.”

Next weekend will see Max return to more familiar surroundings – Rockingham circuit and the latest rounds of the British F3 International Series.