Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Formula 2 leader Frederik Vesti will have his race engineer Pedro Matos alongside him again at the Hungaroring after Matos had to miss the previous round at Silverstone.
Vesti was still able to deliver the goods on track in Matos’s absense, dominating the wet reversed-grid sprint race with Prema’s team manager Guillaume Capietto doubling up as his engineer for the weekend.
Afterwards Vesti paid tribute to the team’s work for making his win possible, and also for its support of the absent Matos.
“Pedro is back,” Vesti beamed as he spoke to Formula Scout from the Hungaroring paddock. “He’s back, and he’s confident, so it’s good to have that feeling and confidence back, because when you miss your engineer for the weekend it’s [tough].
“Luckily I had a good engineer in Guillaume, team manager of Prema, at Silverstone. But obviously, having Pedro, that I’ve known for many, many years, it’s very important to me. And he is a big part of my success in my junior career since 2019. So suddenly missing him in Silverstone was a bit tricky. For sure I’m looking forward to have this race weekend with him again, and we are ready to fight.”
The pair have form at the Hungaroring, starting with a stunning weekend back in 2019 when Vesti was part of Prema’s Formula Regional European Championship line-up. He was fastest in practice, then in qualifying claimed pole for all three of the weekend’s races.
He converted the first of those into an assured win, did the same in race two, then won race three despite a lead of 2.7 seconds being wiped out in the final few corners by a right-front suspension failure when the bracket connecting the wishbone to the tub detached. In the end he was victorious by just 0.131s as his car crabbed to the finish line.