Fittipaldi hails ‘fantastic’ run to maiden Formula 2 points in Montreal Sprint Race

Emerson Fittipaldi was pleased to score his first Formula 2 points in Saturday’s Montreal Sprint Race and praised AIX Racing for a strong weekend so far.

The Brazilian driver narrowly missed out on a place in the top 10 in Qualifying, ending up in P11 and just 0.030s of Gabriele Minì in P10.

However, Fittipaldi started the Sprint from ninth with other drivers serving grid penalties, and showed strong pace early on, finding himself in the middle of a DRS train led by the car in second.

The AIX rookie was able to make his way forward, benefiting from his rivals hitting trouble ahead and post-race penalties to take the chequered flag in seventh, before being classified in fifth place.

Speaking after jumping out of the car, Fittipaldi said the result was as a reward for his and the team’s hard work this season.

“It's overall about our collaboration with the team and everybody working together,” he started. “There was a lot of prep done before even the event on the simulator that made a big impact on our results because from FP, we were already quite competitive in the top 10 and we stayed there.

“So just really thankful to God and to the team to be able to make such a good race car for me to race today and to be able to finally finish in the points is fantastic.”

Talking through the race, Fittipaldi admitted it was not easy to be fighting in the points, so close with his rivals but expressed his delight at being able to compete with the other drivers for points.

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“Well the first time racing in the front pack in Formula 2 is never easy,” he said. “These guys in the front are very talented and they're very good drivers, everybody on the grid is.

“These guys especially in the front are fantastic drivers and it was just an incredible opportunity to be racing wheel-to-wheel with them.

“This is what I wanted to do this whole season and I finally managed to do it now here in Canada in Round 3. So, it's something that we had hoped for even later in the year, to get some points but we got it really early.

“So we hope we can continue working from here and just developing and maybe take the next step, hopefully a podium in some races, even tomorrow we still have another race. It's maybe going to be mixed weather or really wet so you never know, it could shift.”

Fittipaldi says AIX got a good indication of their pace from their performance in Qualifying, where his best lap had put him firmly inside the top 10, before other drivers improved.

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However, the 19-year-old has not been dwelling on that, and is now focused on continue his and the team’s good weekend in the Feature Race.

“Of course starting P11 tomorrow I'm still in the fight for the points,” he said. “Hopefully we can score some more points tomorrow and also you never know what can happen.”