The AF Corse trio were expected to be among the leaders after securing a front row start in qualifying and even though the car was not the fastest on the track, everything was proceeding well with Nielsen in the lead after a good pit call during a Full Course Yellow. However, the potential podium ended with the drive-through for breaking the maximum speed allowed under the FCY. These are the comments of the drivers at the end of the Imola round.
James Calado: “It wasn’t an easy race because the car wasn’t performing as well as the others purely on Balance of Performance. So obviously this makes it very difficult to manage everything. I did a good start, safe. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication problem with the Full Course Yellow, and so I was unable to slow down in time, as well as many other drivers who, like us, were forced to drive through. We were unlucky, but there’s not much we can do now. My teammates were very good at making up the ground, and we were also lucky to finish in the points. It was nice to get back in the car, to race again and to come away with points in a very competitive championship like this. We’ll keep working on trying to improve performance. There’s a lot of things we learned over the weekend”.
Alessandro Pier Guidi: "The drive-through decision raises many doubts both because the race director's call was odd and because any possible gain would have then been zeroed by the Safety Car that recompacted the group. Besides this decisive episode, it was a difficult race because the BoP doesn't permit us the same speed as the other cars and this really complicates things a lot. If we add to this a not always correct management of the blue flags that hampered our comeback, we must be satisfied at having nevertheless secured some important championship points”.
Nicklas Nielsen: “I’m happy with my stint even though we’re obviously sorry about the drive-through. It’s a shame because this penalty ruined James’ great race, but we can’t change things”.