Boccolacci: “You learn more when you take risks”

As a racing driver, you push yourself to the very limit of what seems humanly possible. Sometimes, it is about giving up complete control of what you are doing and having the confidence in yourself to regain it at that final tenth of a second. This leaves an extremely fine margin between pole position, and the middle of the barriers.

For Dorian Boccolacci, in qualifying on Saturday it was the latter. His attempts to get the maximum out of his Campos left him curtailed in the wall after Turn 16 and handed him a disappointing P13 start in the Feature Race.

“I prefer to try and show that I have the potential to be fast rather than complete the lap and be really slow. You learn more when you take risks than when you stay too far under the limits,” he asserted.

That wasn’t just a soundbite, the Frenchman had seen how far he could push his machine around the streets of Monte Carlo and would use this to his advantage. “It is a tricky corner because you are on the limits in entry,” he continued. “You can’t take too much curb, but you do need to take a bit and then you need to be close to the wall at the exit, otherwise you don’t have enough speed in the corner.”

“To be fast in qualifying you need to go close to the limit, and in Monaco if you go slightly too close, you don't finish the lap and that is what happened yesterday.”

The Frenchman would retreat to the pit lane, visibly distraught by the bitter end to his session, but Friday’s tale would be one of redemption. After all, in his own words it was “another day and it was a good.”

Despite starting as far back as 13th on a circuit in which it is notoriously difficult to overtake, the 20-year-old managed to rise to fourth.

“In qualifying, it was possible to get much better than P13 and we had the speed to make the top five, so, I am really happy to bring this race in for the team because we deserve it. We were really competitive and now we have shown that.

“We made a good decision with the strategy and we had the speed at the end of the race to create a good gap in order to go into the pits and not be overtaken by the driver in behind.

“It was a good day and we have a good position for the Sprint Race, so we will keep working and keep trying to improve every time - both the team and myself. I think that we have made some good steps since the beginning of the season and we now understand each other better.