Saturday's GP2 race at Monaco
Fifth for di Grassi in Monaco
Lucas di Grassi scored a fifth place finish in Saturday's
GP2 race at Monaco, although the result was tinged with frustration
for the Renault Driver Development squad member, who felt
he should have been on the podium.
Lucas qualified the ART entry in fifth place, but gained
a spot at the start when one of the cars ahead failed to get
away cleanly. He then passed temporary team mate Sebastien
Buemi on the run to the first corner to gain third.
While race leader Pastor Maldonado pulled away in front Lucas
found himself stuck behind Giorgio Pantano, despite having
a potentially quicker car. Unfortunately that proved to be
expensive for Lucas, as some of the drivers who chose to make
early compulsory pit stops found clean air and were able to
gain time on him.
Lucas finally came in on lap 18. Having lost a little time
on his in-lap because some marshals were running across the
track, he emerged from the pits to find that Timo Glock and
Lucas Filippi had leapfrogged him, and pushed him down to
fifth. Despite a couple of safety car periods closing up the
field he was unable to regain the places he had lost.
He is now joint third in the points standings with Bruno
Senna on 18 points, although the Brazilian has won a race
and is thus technically ahead.
There is no Sunday sprint race in Monaco, and there is now
a gap of several weeks until the next race at Magny-Cours.
‘I was quickest in free practice, but qualifying here
is always a big mess,' said Lucas. ‘Still, fifth was
OK. I was up to third in the first corner, and it looked really
good. I felt I was at least half a second quicker than Pantano,
who was ahead. We were really fast. I don't really understand
how I ended up fifth again after the pit stop, but I think
we maybe should have stopped at the same time as the others.
‘I'm third in the championship, but there's a big gap
now until Magny-Cours. We have a test coming up, and we have
to work hard and try to put everything together. It's the
home race for the team so I hope we can do a good job there
for them.'
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