Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Enzo Fittipaldi says braking issues cost him a second Formula 2 win in the sprint race at Yas Marina Circuit.
The Rodin Carlin driver started on reversed-grid pole and led the first 19 laps in the 23-lap race. But after Prema’s Frederik Vesti overtook him, he dropped 3.893 seconds behind.
Fittipaldi said afterwards he was “frustrated” as he wanted to win, and “I really did give it my best” to achieve that.
“At the end with five or six laps to go, we started dropping off a lot, struggling with brake temperatures and everything and struggling a lot under braking. I saw Vesti was catching me a lot,” he explained.
“When he went for the move, I think I was over a bump or something in the middle of the track, then as soon as I braked I locked my right-front and got a massive flatspot and that’s why I dropped off a lot more than I would have in the last couple of laps because my tyre was like a square. It was a crazy race.”
Fittipaldi and Vesti had already fought for the lead early on, having shared the grid’s front row.
“I think I did a decent start from my side, but Fred had a really good start. I was able to keep it around the outside, and I think we were clean between me and him. He went for a move in T4 and I ended up falling back to third or fourth, and then I went all in in T6 and overtook a couple of cars and was in the lead out of turn six. My first laps of the race, the first 10 or 12 laps, I was able to create a good gap. But then I just struggled a lot in the last five laps.”
Carlin “probably will” make set-up changes for the feature race to avoid a repeat of Fittipaldi’s struggles.
“We were really fast in the 10 first [laps], 60, 70% of the race. But the very little details make a big difference. So we’re going to do some changes. We need to, I think, make some little changes to improve our pace at the end of a race stint. I’d say maybe as well from my side, I was a little bit too aggressive in the first couple laps trying to build the gap and break the DRS, which I did. We’ll analyse and see what we can do to improve for tomorrow.”
While it’s “very important” to end the season on a high, it will not be easy from 10th on the grid.
“As we saw today, you can make a lot of moves like Vesti today if you have the pace,” said Fittipaldi. “So I’m sure it’s going to be a very eventful race with strategy as well tomorrow. We saw that during last year, doing the prime-option strategy really worked out. So I think there’ll be a lot of drivers on different strategies and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.”