Points finishes in both of the Italian GP supporting races, with a determined drive to 5th place in Sunday’s sprint race, gave Max plenty to be pleased with after he delivered his best results of the season so far……..

It hadn’t looked quite so rosy on Friday night though, after a disappointing qualifying session had left him pondering a 23rd place grid slot for Saturday’s feature race. Max managed to turn the weekend around with a mature and pacey performance, avoiding the usual pitfalls that Monza’s incredibly demanding speed produces, to climb up through the field and take 8th place at the chequered flag and bag his first point in the main series of GP2.

The reverse grid pole position he had earned for the sprint encounter was his second since graduating to GP2 after successful seasons in British Formula 3. The last time Max had raced at Monza, back in 2008, he had also started from pole, so it was a familiar place Max found himself in on Sunday morning.

Although slow away from the lights, he recovered to slot into 3rd place after the long drag down to the first chicane. The pace in the early laps wasn’t there and Max was swiftly relegated by both of the rapid ART cars. From this stage of the race though, he turned it round and resisting ever-present pressure from Oliver Turvey for the entire race, he closed the gap to 4th place and secured another couple of points to add to his feature race baptism.

“It’s been a good weekend with good results” he said after the race. “I wasn’t expecting that after qualifying. I thought I could be quick here and after practice I thought that with some small set-up changes we’ll be in the top ten, but qualifying was a nightmare. It just didn’t work and yesterday I didn’t really think about a points finish. But the team changed our set-up, and now my pace has been good in both the races. To get up to 8th yesterday and come home 5th today: that’s given me a lot of encouragement and it feels good to have some points on the board now.”