Tatiana Calderón was ‘pleased’ with her performances during the GP3 Series weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which culminated in her best ever result in the series in sixth on Sunday, however she felt there was a lot more potential than the results would indicate.
The Jenzer Motorsport driver had topped the ten-minute re-arranged practice session in Italy ahead of the Qualifying session but had hoped to have qualified higher up than eighth in that session, which she felt she would have done had she been given a tow down the straights.
“Overall I’m really pleased with the weekend, even though we missed a big opportunity on Saturday,” said Calderón. “Due to the weather conditions we only had 10 minutes of practice, and it felt great to be on top.
“In qualifying we had the speed for the top five but on the last lap I didn’t get a slipstream, so I was happy to only be three tenths off pole and starting inside the top eight.”
The two races had mixed results for Calderón, with the Colombian going the wrong way with set-up for race one that saw her unable to defend her position. She ran as high as fourth but slipped down the order to ultimately be classified fifteenth.
However, Sunday was a much better day with a much better set-up, and Calderón drove strongly to climb from fifteenth on the grid to claim eighth at the chequered flag, which became sixth when both Callum Ilott and Anthoine Hubert were excluded ahead of her.
“Unfortunately, in Race 1 the team thought it would rain more than it did – we had set up the car for a lot of rain, but it started to dry out and we fell away; there was nothing I could do to keep up the pace,” said Calderón.
“Then in Race 2, starting from P15, I had really good pace and I was feeling quite confident. I was able to overtake a lot of guys to cross the line in P8, and then the two disqualifications meant I finished P6, which is my best result in GP3.
“Now we have two more rounds left of the season to keep that momentum going and hopefully we can do even better from now on.”
