Istanbul

It was a mixed bag this past weekend for Lotus ART at the Istanbul Park circuit where the first meeting of the GP3 Series was held...

Fourth on the starting grid in the first Turkish race, Valtteri Bottas crossed the finish line in the same position. The next day he finished at the 8th place.

For his first participation in a GP3 Series event, James Calado managed to handle all of the parameters of a very complex championship to move himself up to the inside of the 3rd line on the starting grid behind Valtteri. Unfortunately, he stalled at the start and crossed the finish line in 17th place. He gained four places in the second race, and above all earned himself some good experience in the Series.

On one of the season’s most complex circuits, Pedro Henrique Nunes persisted all the week-end in order to progress but all his efforts were fruitless.

Valtteri Bottas

“I was very confident after the first free sessions where I had the best time on the wet, but it got very complicated after that. Regarding the qualifying, the pole was within the grasp, unfortunately in the last sector, the traffic, the tires degradation and the fact that I went too wide had hampered my chances. We will have to analyze all the data to find out what when wrong. In the first race I kept my position in the start and then I put pressure on Dillmann, but it was impossible to overtake him. The second race is more disturbing because we were off and I kept losing places. I am still confident because Lotus ART has what we need to do great things.”

James Calado

“It was my first time participating in a GP3 Series race and I had a lot to learn in a short period of time. Despite that, my qualifying went well and I had high hopes for the race. Unfortunately, I stalled at the start and that set the tone for the rest of my weekend, as well as my results. The first page has been turned, and I am impatiently awaiting the second one because I know that with Lotus ART I can aim to fight with the front-runners.”

Pedro Henrique Nunes

“After a promising first season, I hoped to get off to a good start in Turkey. But the weather changes put me on edge a bit, and I didn’t manage to get the most out of the package that Lotus ART gave me. It is a weekend I would rather forget, and I know things will go better in Barcelona.”

Frederic Vasseur:

“There are a lot of positive points, and some question marks to take away from this weekend. Valtteri had the potential to secure a pole position. But when he found himself on the dirty side of the track on the grid of the race 1, things got complicated. Despite it all, he attacked from the start of the first race to the finish line, on a track which proved extremely difficult to overtake on. On Sunday we lost ground because of various choices which were more or less forced upon us, but you can’t ignore the elephant in the room: we weren’t on our game and we have two weeks to bring ourselves up to speed.”