PREMA Racing went from contending for a podium to having to deal with a disappointing double finish in the opening race of the FIA Formula 2 Championship at Baku Street Circuit.
Sebastian Montoya took off from P3 on the Sprint Race grid and quickly managed to gain one spot. He then held onto the same position, showing good potential and strong progress in his first race at the challenging Azerbaijani street course. Unfortunately, with a few laps to go, the Colombian-American collected a large piece of debris that clogged the engine's radiators, which caused overheating and sent his car into protection mode.
After fighting for pole yesterday, Gabriele Minì was in contention for the top five thanks to a solid start and an aggressive run in the first part of the race. The Italian also suffered from overheating due to the dirt on-track and lost a couple of spots in the closing stages to finish in P7.
#9 SEBASTIAN MONTOYA
"A sad end to the sprint race today. We made a good step compared to yesterday, a lot of work done. I don’t know what happened. The engine just overheated, and we lost everything. We still had improvements that we can use for tomorrow. We will analyze what happened today and look forward to tomorrow. We will try to control the things we can and move forward."
#10 GABRIELE MINÌ
"We had a good start and a positive beginning of the race with a good pace and some overtakes as well. We had a bit of an issue with overheating; there was so much dirt on track that got stuck in the sidepods. From that point on it was a consequence, I had to push more to catch up and killed the tyres. In the end, I lost power and had no tyres left. We need to understand how to prevent that and get ready for tomorrow."