Fittipaldi taking positives from Spielberg after up and down weekend

It was a comeback drive through the field for Enzo Fittipaldi as he made his experience count to rise from 15th on the grid to secure a top five result for Van Amersfoort Racing in fourth place.

The Brazilian was on the charge late on, battling with AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen and Hitech Pulse-Eight driver Amaury Cordeel and getting the better of both, with as it turned out, crucial moves.

Having cleared the duo, the next driver up the road in Championship leader Paul Aron earned himself a time penalty that put him within range of Fittipaldi.

The VAR driver turned up the wick in the final stages to complete a measured performance at the Red Bull Ring, ultimately earning fourth position following the application of Aron’s sanction and Josep María Martí’s post-race penalty for pitting under the Virtual Safety Car.

“The race was a clean one. I think from our side, the boys executed well in the pitstop, we had good pace, and we’ll move forward,” he surmised afterwards.

“I think we had very similar pace at the end of the race to Paul ahead, and it would have been difficult to close the five seconds.

“The team told me with 10 laps to go that he had a time penalty, so I started pushing my tyres, made sure I was chasing him down and I ended up getting the place by I think it was one tenth, so yeah I was confident I could do it.”

While Fittipaldi says he was happy to have made up the places lost during Qualifying, it’s the team’s performance in the all-important Friday session that he says is the weak point for the Dutch outfit currently.

READ MORE: Martí handed post-Feature Race penalty in Spielberg

After qualifying in seventh and fifth positions in Sakhir and Jeddah to open the 2024 campaign, Fittipaldi hasn’t had a top 10 start in the following rounds.

It has put him and the team on the back foot for each race weekend, and that is something that will need to change says Fittipaldi.

“It was a good day, you can’t do much else starting from P15 unless other people DNF in front of us. We would have been able to finish higher, but I think we maximised today.

“We need to sort the car out for Qualifying and then we can be further up than we were today.”