Photo: Red Bull
Oliver Goethe aims to bounce back from a disappointing Imola Formula 3 qualifying session, where he felt he had pace to fight for pole position.
The Campos Racing driver will line up sixth in the sprint and seventh in the feature race. He had his best laptime deleted for exceeding track limits, but it was reinstated after the stewards examined the footage post-session.
He was the best-classified driver in the Spanish squad regardless, with Sebastian Montoya and Mari Boya, who also had their best laps deleted, down in 24th and 28th place.
Nonetheless, Goethe, who was fastest in practice and topped the times early in qualifying, was far from happy with the end result. He reckoned there was more pace in the car, which he aims to extract to fight at the front in the races.
“It was messy,” he told Formula Scout after the session. “It could have definitely gone a lot better, especially on the last set. It was complete chaos like cars stopped and everything in the last couple of corners. And we were at the back of the pit-lane. So we got compromised the most by that.
“The tyres were not ready for the first push because of all that chaos. And then I got blocked by another driver on my first push. Then the second push I managed to do P8 but with a bit of a mistake,” he explained on where he missed out with the second set of tyres.
Goethe reckoned he “definitely had the pace to fight for pole”, which left him “very disappointed overall”. However, there is still a silver lining as he will be “in the mix for sure for both races”.
“Race pace has always been strong. So I’m confident it will be there this weekend as well. In practice and quali, the pace was really, really strong. So if I could bring that into the races, I’m sure I can fight forwards and expect some good results.”
The medium compound allocated for this weekend is expected to again play its part in the races, although not as critical as in the previous round.
“It’s the same tyres as we had in Melbourne and in Melbourne it was a complete disaster with the tyre deg. So we can definitely expect a bit. It’s not the same track, so it might not be as bad. It might be a lot better, but for sure that will come into play a bit at least.”