Lining up for one of the toughest challenges of the year, on a track where competition is extremely intense, PREMA Racing found some progress and gains at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. With almost 20 drivers covered by a second, the team had a challenging qualifying, which included hot weather conditions that made tyre management paramount.
Montoya started from P20 after managing to climb up to the points zone in the Sprint Race. The Colombian-American once again did an outstanding job recovering, and continued his efforts in the Feature Race, where his strategy was affected by the timing of a safety car. Still, he proved fast on option tyres, giving strong indications for the races ahead.
Mari Boya faced a difficult weekend, qualifying in P21, and could not find the right feeling with the car and track to make his way up the order. After finishing P15 in the opening race, the Spanish rookie ended up P21 in the Feature.
#11 - SEBASTIAN MONTOYA
"There's a lot of positives to take from today. We got another mega start, which was really good. I made up five positions on the opening lap. We were a little compromised by a strategy that was optimized for a safety car because we lost all the tyre advantage we had in the opening laps. So in the end, that was something where we were a little unlucky, but it happens in racing. I think there are some things that we need to focus on and understand because this weekend we struggled with the softs, and it was the same thing in the race. But then on the prime tyre, we were quite competitive in clean air. I was able to match some of the front-runners, which was really strong. Obviously, starting so far back and losing a lot of the tyre advantage hurt us, especially because the people we were racing around had done the alternate strategy of going prime and then options. Today, the tyre to be on was the options, and sadly, when we used them, we just couldn't maximize them. From my side, the key thing is to try to maximize Friday a little bit better and put myself in a better position for the weekend."
#12 - MARI BOYA
"For sure it was not the weekend I was expecting for my home race. We are doing a lot of work on track that doesn't seem to bring us anywhere. We need to work hard and find a solution because we are a bit too far."