Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Frederik Vesti had a very emotional reaction to claiming his second Formula 2 pole in Monaco, an achievement he says “means a lot” to him.
The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior edged Pourchaire by the slim margin of 0.052 seconds to top his qualifying group before the red flag came out, bringing the session to an early end. His laptime of 1m21.053s was also the fastest overall, which earned him pole.
“I’m extremely happy. The lap was obviously good. I was trying to push as hard as I could, but still managing the pressure and not making mistakes, because around Monaco you cannot go all-out every single corner,” said the Prema driver afterwards.
“You need to put the lap together and do a clean qualifying to be fast. Obviously it requires also a lot of pushing and and taking some risk. But yeah, we managed to do the pole and it just means everything to me.
“If you asked me before the season if I won the one pole, I would definitely choose Monaco [to be it]. So I’m really happy to take this one. And it just shows the improvement I’m making and the direction it’s going. Just very happy to make the step, and we’ll keep pushing.”
Formula Scout asked Vesti how he felt as he was congratulated by his team and those around him in the pitlane after the end of the qualifying session.
“I tried to think about it, I was almost crying. So I really tried just to enjoy the moment with all the team, and just looking back at what we just did and then just enjoying that. It means so much to me, especially qualifying. Doing pole position means a lot to me. So to do this result was everything. Very happy.”
Expanding on the significance of taking pole in Monaco, he added: “It just requires so much commitment. It’s such a difficult track. Also, there’s a lot of history, there’s a lot of emotions coming here. We all want to win. This is the number one we want to win and do pole position. So it’s a very important weekend, and it’s one we all dream of.
“But in the car, I’m just focused on driving and then trying to push myself to go a little bit faster every single corner and every single lap. And that is the challenge here, because if you go past that moment, it’s over and you’re in the wall. So it’s a very fine line, and getting it right is very difficult. So when I realised we got it right, I was just very happy.”