Jack Aitken was pleased to do friend and fellow Renault junior Anthoine Hubert justice in Monza with his Sprint Race victory. The Campos racer labelled the racing as a ‘nice distraction,’ on an emotional weekend for the entire Formula 2 paddock.

The Brit’s powerful and unrelenting drive in the Sprint Race handed him a third victory of the season, but he was made to work for it, as Jordan King utilised the slipstream advantages of the Monza circuit.

As he arrived in the Parc Fermé and parked up in first place, Aitken rose from his car, the usually punching celebration replaced with an emotional and warm embrace, firstly with his family, then with his team who handed him a French flag. Joined by King and Nyck de Vries, the trio proudly held the red, white and blue aloft on the podium, in honour of Hubert.

“It was definitely an emotional weekend for everybody,” he began. “I think that for a lot of the guys and girls in the paddock, it was a nice distraction in a way to get back to work.

“For sure, to end the weekend like that, with a win, especially for everyone in Renault, I think we were all hoping for a good result, to do Anthoine justice. That was quite a relief in the end, to come away with that.”

Aitken and King exchanged first and second three times during the race, before the Campos driver eventually got ahead for good after a handy Virtual Safety Car period. Aitken did get black and white flagged for weaving, which he cheekily branded as “a little naughty,” in the press conference.

Despite briefly losing his place to King, Aitken’s confidence in the Campos machine at his disposal helped him to keep his nerve, safe in the knowledge that he had the pace to get back in front.

He continued: “It was a very strong performance I think, because although we had a few battles along the way, we were pretty quick the whole race. With the slipstream, it was pretty tough to hold on to the lead, so I am very happy with that. Jordan was very tough to fight off, and he had a few goes. It was pretty close racing at a couple of points, but we all came out on the other side.

“When Jordan got past me, I was just trying to stay calm, because I knew that we had the pace anyway. It was quite easy to stay behind him and wait for the next opportunity using DRS, it just happened that we got it with the VSC instead. I managed to jump him at the VSC and pull a bit of a gap. Callum Ilott got ahead of him as well and started fighting with him instead.”

The 23-year-old’s Sprint Race was in stark contrast to a disappointing Qualifying session. Inflicted by the wet conditions, Aitken could only manage a P13 placing, which left him with a big job to do in the Feature Race.

“Qualifying was very difficult for us,” he recalled. “We got caught out in those changeable conditions and we were a bit unlucky as well. We knew we had a bit more pace than that, but the Feature Race was really hard work.

“We had a slow puncture for most of the race, which was really slowing us down, so we targeted P8 for the reverse grid pole and just about managed it. That was obviously key to getting the win.”

Victory lifts Aitken to within two points of Luca Ghiotto in third place and the opportunity to break into the top three at Sochi, ahead of the season closer in Abu Dhabi. Despite the carrot of third dangling in front of him, Aitken asserted that nothing will change. He will continue to focus on his own performance and let others get on with theirs.

“We want to be going for wins,” he concluded. “For sure, we will have our eyes on the other guys around us in the Championship, but at the end of the day, you can’t do much about them, so we will just try and do what we always do and get the best performance that we can.”