Matevos Isaakyan had a breakthrough weekend at the Red Bull Ring, securing his maiden Formula V8 3.5 pole position and his first top three finish during Sunday’s second race of the weekend.
The SMP Racing driver led an all-rookie front row on Sunday, having missed out on points completely with a twelfth place finish on Saturday, and was delighted to turn his weekend around so quickly.
“This is my first pole position in the series, for sure I’m really happy,” said Isaakyan on formulav8.com. “We had some issues yesterday but the team worked very hard to come back strong.
“This is the best reward for them and for all the people around me.”
The Russian teenager was unfazed as he led the race at the start, even surviving an early safety car, deployed when Giuseppe Cipriani spun into the gravel trap, but lost out during the pit stop cycle to both Aurélien Panis and Tom Dillmann, but was happy enough to claim his maiden series podium.
“We had a really good pace,” admitted Isaakyan. “The safety-car cancelled the advantage of more or less two seconds I had in the first lap, but then I had a quite good restart.
“I made maybe a couple of mistakes before going back in the pit-lane, then we lost too much time there. I still don’t know why, but at the end of the day we’re on the podium, and rookie winner, so it’s a positive result.”
