Montoya continues strong form with top-5 Qualifying result
R
Sebastian Montoya and PREMA Racing continued their top-5 form in Abu Dhabi, where the Colombian-American secured P5 at the end of today's qualifying session. Building on strong Free Practice learnings, Montoya continued his progress and showed pole-contending pace in an extremely close session.
Standing third at the end of the first run, Montoya delivered fifth place with his second set of tyres, two tenths away from the leading competitor. He will take off from P4 in the Sprint Race.
Gabriele Minì started the weekend perfectly, leading the opening practice session with speed and consistency in terms of performance. However, the Italian couldn't find the right confidence with the car in Qualifying and had to settle for 13th place.
With good passing opportunities in Yas Marina, he will fight for a rebound in the two races to cap off the year in a positive fashion.
#9 - SEBASTIAN MONTOYA
"A very good qualifying to end the year. I wanted the pole position, and I was in the top-3, but I'll take fifth place without complaining too much. Really happy with the step we made, especially after Free Practice. We made a lot of preparations to end the year really strong, and that's exactly what we are doing. We are even better than last weekend and closer to the front for the feature race. I feel quite confident with the car, and I think the team did a really good job. We are just going to keep improving, and I'm looking forward to the races because, unlike in Qatar, we can overtake here. On to the weekend."
#10 - GABRIELE MINI
"Very disappointing qualifying to be honest after such a strong Free Practice. I felt I didn't have the same pace straight away from the first set, and I didn't have the same feeling of FP. We still weren't far off and could have fought for the top ten, but in the second run, it was the worst it has been so far. We need to check what happened after a positive practice session, even in its final laps. We will check the data to see what went wrong and make some positions tomorrow."