Photo: Red Bull
Pepe Marti made the podium in the Formula 2 sprint race in Jeddah but feels he was “let down by my own performance” after a mistake cost him a potential victory.
The Spaniard was classified in second place behind his Campos Racing team-mate Arvid Lindblad after MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor received a five-second time penalty for not leaving Marti enough space at the exit of turn two when overtaking him on lap five of 20.
Marti was visibly disappointed with his performance in the post-race press conference, as a mistake at turn 10 on lap 8 cost him track position to Lindblad and some crucial ground in the battle at the front of the field.
“To be honest, it’s a good result P2, but I’m not happy at all,” he told media including Formula Scout. “I would have inherited the lead had I not gone off. It’s true that Arvid at that point was maybe a bit quicker than me, but I think later on we stabilised and we had a pretty similar pace.
“So to be honest, [I’m] quite let down by my own performance. Obviously, it’s quite good for the championship, but I’m not really proud of the result if that makes a lot of sense.”
Marti was surprised to learn that Verschoor’s penalty was because of the Dutchman’s overtake on him.
“I had no idea that that was the reason for the penalty,” he said. “To be honest, I thought it was on the limit. I thought it was a bit too harsh, but then again, we’re racing. I also gave him just the amount of right space in the exit of turn one. So I think you can look at it in many ways.
“To be honest, if that was the reason for the penalty, then good for me, and I think good for the three of us. But I think I’ll have to look back and analyse and then I’ll think about what I think about it.”
The Red Bull junior driver has scored points in the first four races of the season, and is second in the championship tied in points with Alex Dunne, but wants more than just consistency.
“In this world you have to win races, you have to do a good job, you have to be competitive, especially on Sundays. That’s where the points are given out. And in Bahrain, we did a really good job. We came from 11th. We kind of maximised what we had with fourth.
“I certainly cannot afford mistakes like the one today going forward. Obviously today I got out of it quite happily, getting a second place after going off in T10. And to be honest, when I went off, I was facing the wall and I was still bottoming and coming out sideways for the whole lap, so to be fair, staying ahead of the pack was already a miracle.”