Max gained more experience of the legendary Monte Carlo Grand Prix track, coming through the field from a back row start in the second race to finish 14th after an accident at the start of Friday’s first race had seem him eliminated ….

Max’s first race drama, the result of a collision on the approach to the tight first corner, put paid to any points scoring finishes from the weekend, but it was his qualifying experience that Max felt held the key to success or disappointment at Monaco as he explained;

“I was very aware of how important it was to have a good qualifying result here,” the 19 year-old said, “I went into the half hour session on Thursday knowing that with the circuit damp but drying, that the quickest times would come at the end. I looked after my tyres specifically to be strong at the end and initially my lap time with only a couple of minutes of the session remaining was quick and it put me right up there.”

Any chance to improve further was compromised due to yellow flags on his final lap when the track was drying and at its best, however he was annoyed afterwards to find out that many drivers had apparently ignored the flags and improved their lap times and he had dropped to 16th on the timesheets. The drivers are told in the briefing that they must reduce their pace significantly under cautionary yellow flags, not by just a few tenths of a second, but more likely by whole seconds. It was clear that a lot of drivers hadn’t followed this rule and the organisers did not subsequently disallow their times. Max was obviously disappointed as he explained;

“On the last couple of laps there were yellow flags at the first corner so I thought that was it. I backed right off as we’re supposed to, but it was obvious afterwards that loads of drivers didn’t do this. I’m very annoyed that nothing seems to have been done about it by the stewards.”

Starting so far back exposes a driver to the potential problems at the start at Monte Carlo and Max fell victim to the unforgiving barriers after contact with another car on the run down to the first bend. Under braking his car was launched skywards, flying through the air and hitting the wall. Luckily Max emerged unscathed from the impact.

His elimination put him at the back of the grid for race two where he would have to spend the race gathering invaluable experience about one of the most difficult circuits in the world, knowing that realistically a points scoring finish would be out of reach.

"All was good on Saturday. I found a good race pace and I made up several positions. The car was difficult to handle in the final stages but you can expect that on such a demanding track on the tyres," he explained. "I had a good start but I had to lift off a bit on several occasions to avoid collisions with slower cars. In the end it was a good result to finish 14th from where I’d started.”

The next venue for Max and the GP2 series will be supporting the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul in two weeks time.