Interviews by Sergio Álvarez; spiritual guidance by Diego Merino; header image by Tony Hall.
P1 – Liam Lawson, Carlin, 1:21.229 (Group A)
P2 – Théo Pourchaire, ART Grand Prix, 1:21.535 (Group B)
P3 – Ayumu Iwasa, DAMS, 1:21.288 (Group A)
UPDATE: as per Formula 2, “provisional pole-sitter Liam Lawson has been found guilty of failing to reduce his speed under a single-waved yellow flag” and “he has received a five-place grid drop, dropping him down to P11” for the Sprint Race. LL is now classified in P5 for the Feature Race.
Q: “Cogrtas guys, what changes would you make to the Monaco qualy format if you had the opportunity to do so: are you happy with how things are at the moment? With two separate groups of qualifiers.”
Lawson: “In terms of qualy format, from my side I would say it’s a good format. Obviously yesterday I think all of us had plenty of traffic in Free Practice, that’s the way it is when you have this many cars on track at once so from my side it helps the traffic issue, for sure. But when you have incidents and things like that, it’s Monaco. If you have a crash, it’s going to be parked in the middle of the track, it definitely can alter things at least for these guys in Group B. It obviously didn’t help them but I think that’s just the way the Monaco is.”
Pourchaire: “I don’t think it’s about the format, to be honest. I think it’s something else (and to do) with the traffic. You know, yesterday in Free Practice with 22 cars on track it was so difficult to do one (flying) lap. There was many yellow flags and things like that. Yeah, it’s a good format, at least it’s the best thing to do to help us do a normal qualy and to do some laps.”
Iwasa: “Yeah, I agree because definitely everyone will be able to get a good lap because of less traffic so I’m really happy about this (format).”
“In a situation like today it would be pretty heartbreaking to obviously lose a lap time, lose a pole over something like this for somebody who’s obviously crashed and then had been able to park it in the straight basically and then ruined the guys behind.”
Liam Lawson, Carlin
Q: “Would you support a new rule to delete the lap time of someone who crashed but gets to keep their position with yellow or red flags?” Re-Drugovich schumacher-gate.
Lawson: “I think that depends on the situation but in a situation like today it would be pretty heartbreaking to obviously lose a lap time, lose a pole over something like this for somebody who’s obviously crashed and then had been able to park it in the straight basically and then ruined the guys behind you so every situation is different. I think it would be pretty frustrating to have someone not do the lap but still get to keep the pole position.”
Pourchaire: “I agree a bit with that because I think you can’t improve under yellow flags but the thing is that the who created this yellow flag, if he gets pole – what happens? It’s just completely unfair. It’s a difficult situation and that’s why I think the FIA need to reflect a bit on that. We have to check but me in my position I can’t do anything, I just need to wait for the decisions. That’s a tricky decision for the FIA to take, but me I’m happy.”
Iwasa: “I guess everything will be very difficult in this situation. I completely agree with them. Definitely, we need to find some solution. That’s it.”
iberianmph.com 