PREMA Racing delivered a scintillating win in the F1 Academy tripleheader held at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, confirming the team's strong form displayed in the opening round of the series in Shanghai.
German racer Mathilda Paatz took victory in the Reverse Grid race but her pace stayed strong throughout the whole weekend, which enabled her to secure a double top-five in qualifying.
In the opening race of the weekend, the 17-year-old Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy member claimed her maiden podium and only improved from there with another strong run that ended in victory. A top-five in the final race added more points to her tally, moving up to fifth in points.
Payton Westcott was once again in contention for podiums and achieved her goal in Race 2 after a contact forced an unscheduled pit stop for her in Race 1. She posted a fourth place in Race 3 to wrap up a solid weekend, leaving her a close P4 in the drivers' championship.
Coming from her fiery Chinese campaign, Natalia Granada had a challenging opening with P14 in Race 1, but quickly returned to points-paying positions with a solid fourth place in the reverse grid race and a P8 in the final race.
F1 Academy will take a break before returning to action in early July at the legendary British venue of Silverstone.
#8 MATHILDA PAATZ
"I'm very very happy to end the weekend with my first win, two trophies and a bunch of points for the championship. We qualified well with P5, even though I was blocked a bit in my flying lap. Still, it was a good place to start. In Race 1 we got off with a great start, held our line and finished in P3. It was awesome to get my first podium. It was an amazing start again in the reverse grid race, moving up to P3 and making a good overtake to get to P2. Then with the penalty we won the race and that is the highlight of the season for me so far. The third race was in the wet and I didn't have a lot of experience in these conditions especially on a street circuit. It was really all about getting away, keeping the car on track, and getting comfortable with the conditions. We accomplished that, we stayed in P5 and collected great points."
#9 PAYTON WESTCOTT
“Canada wasn’t the weekend we were hoping for, the results definitely didn’t show our full potential. But every race is a chance to learn, and I’m taking a lot away from this one. We’ll keep pushing, keep improving, and come back stronger for the next round.”
#19 NATALIA GRANADA
"It was very interesting to come here to Montreal for the first time. We showed we had good pace through the weekend in the dry and in the wet. It was a shame I could not put it together in qualifying, because starting so far back really hindered us for the rest of the weekend and it was hard to get positions back. In Race 1 we were caught in an incident that took us out of contention early. We ran clean in Race 2 with some good moves that allowed us to get some good points. Race 3 in the wet was difficult, the start was not great but we still fought for every position we could. I think we had a great package. It's a shame we couldn't show our full potential. We take the positives and things to learn for the next round in Silverstone."
Qualifying 1: P11