GP2 Series newcomer Kevin Ceccon showed impressive pace in the sprint race at Barcelona on Sunday morning as he finished in 15th place.
The Coloni driver ended the first lap down in 23rd place but kept his cool and remained easy on his tyres in the first half of the race. This then allowed him to go on the attack in the second half, making overtaking moves to climb to 15th place and onto the back of another pack of cars at the checkered flag.
“If yesterday finishing the race was my only priority, today I was a bit more aggressive and I had more fun,” said the 17-year-old.
“Together with the team we planned a strategy to make my tyres last longer, in order to have an advantage at the end of the race. It was very effective because I managed to make some good passes and with another half lap I could have overtaken three more cars.
“The safety car didn’t help us because without those five laps at low speed our rivals would have started suffering from tyre wear much earlier, and we would have finished in a better position, but I’m happy anyway.
“I’m at my second race in the series and I already showed that I can fight on a par with most of the GP2 drivers, and in this weekend I gathered a lot of useful experience on the car and on the race strategy. Now I’m really excited and looking forward to Monaco, but I know that learning must be my primary aim.”
Team boss Paolo Coloni was pleased with Ceccon's performance over his debut weekend.
“I'm really satisfied with what Kevin did in this weekend,” said Coloni. “He is very young, so getting a too emotional approach from him was a possibility we had to take into account. Anyway this wasn't the case at all, he was very cool minded and finished both races with no mistakes at all, which was exactly what we asked him.
“In Race 2 he boasted a great pace, he made clean passes, and he managed his tyre like a very experienced drivers. If the race was two laps more, he would have passed easily at least another three cars, so I think he really did an amazing job for a rookie.”