Raffaele Marciello felt he had a chance of victory during Saturday’s Feature race at the Hockenheimring, but pushing too hard saw his tyre performance drop away, meaning he was left unable to defend from eventual race winner Sergey Sirotkin.
The tyre issues also saw the Russian Time driver drop behind fellow Italian Luca Ghiotto, before being out-dragged to the finish line by Pierre Gasly to finish fourth on the road, although he reclaimed the lower step on the podium when Gasly was disqualified post-race.
“I’m really disappointed,” admitted Marciello on the official Russian Time website. “I made a good start, got into the lead early and really thought I had an opportunity to win.
“I had to push the prime tyres a bit harder than I wanted to get through the traffic and, in the final few laps the performance dropped off by 3-4s per lap and there was nothing more I could do to protect my position.”
After finishing seventh during Sunday’s Sprint race, Marciello remained well in the championship battle, but felt his result could have been better again after again suffering with tyre issues.
“With another podium after Gasly’s exclusion from the feature race, and today’s result, we leave with good points but it could have been better,” said Marciello.
“I lost ground under the first of two virtual safety cars and pushing to make up time hurt the tyres a little bit.”
