Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Paul Aron got the monkey off his back after claiming his maiden Formula 2 victory at Qatar and is determined to finish on a high note in Abu Dhabi.
The Hitech GP driver took the honours in the Losail feature race, benefiting from a time penalty handed to Gabriel Bortoleto.
“I can’t lie, it’s a bit of pressure off my shoulders,” Aron told media including Formula Scout after the race. “It hasn’t fully sunk in yet. It’s been like that this year, we have gotten very close, it’s the fourth pole this weekend and we still hadn’t won a race.
“Looking at the stats, Hitech was the only team not to have won a race. I was thinking about how quick we have been and how many chances there have been, and we still hadn’t won a race. There was this thought, what if we don’t win a race this year? We have been so close so many times.”
A slow getaway from pole position meant Aron immediately dropped behind Bortoleto, and the race then became hectic, preventing him from applying his strategy.
“Our plan was that if we got overtaken in the start, we would go for the undercut,” he explained. “We did that and we were very close to him when I boxed, there was the opportunity to make it work. Then the safety car gave Gabriel the free pitstop, so he kept the track position.
“I tried to manage the race as much as possible, but I also had Isack [Hadjar] behind so it’s not like I could just cruise around and wait for things to happen.”
With a deficit of 25.5 points to Bortoleto and 25 to Hadjar, Aron considers himself an outsider in the title fight heading into the last round.
“We knew coming into these last two rounds it needed to go very well for me. And if it went decent for these two guys, then I would still not win it. So I took the mindset that I just focus on myself, try to do the best I can in these last two rounds and see how it ends up. And this mindset is obviously helping me in a way because there’s not a lot of pressure.
“It really has to go to shambles for these two next to me and really well for me to have any chance at the title. Realistically, I can just interact. But at the same time, I think it’s wrong if you are in this championship just to make it to Formula 1. Of course, that’s the goal of everyone. But if you commit to something, you should be doing it to win it. What’s the point of being here otherwise?
“Every race is a chance to win. Every race is a chance to do a good job. And if I can’t win the championship, I still want to win the last race. So in that sense, nothing changes.”