Interview
Miami-born Montoya ready for ‘emotional’ weekend as he targets competitive result
Sebastián Montoya admits it will be “special” to be out on track this weekend, but says his focus is on maximising his and PREMA Racing’s results in Round 2.
The Miami native is looking to bounce back from an opening round in Melbourne where he scored just two points, finishing ninth in the Feature Race.
Montoya is hopeful that he and PREMA’s work since then will give them a chance to bounce back at the Miami International Autodrome – which is just 15 minutes away from where he first stepped into a go kart.
“It feels really nice to be here,” said Montoya. “I'm really excited. I think we've done a lot of work with the team since Australia to make some good progress.
“I think Australia was a bit of a learning weekend for us with all the changes within the off-season, understanding the good things, and the things that we need to improve on.
“But I'm excited to be back racing and then secondly to be back in Miami is a lot more exciting to say the least. I think it's really cool.
“Obviously from one side it's really emotional because I grew up here, I think the first time I drove a go kart was like 15 minutes away from the track.
“So to see how far it's actually come is amazing and obviously I dreamed of hopefully one day racing here in F1. I didn't expect to be here in F2 but it is a really pleasant surprise.”
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When asked what the keys to the weekend will be, Montoya responded: “I think the whole thing is going straight for DRS. I think that's going to be really important for the races to make sure you can either stay in it or you try to break it.
“I'd rather be trying to break the DRS from behind, but I think the biggest thing is making sure you can try and use the DRS to your advantage, especially for Friday.
“You need to make sure you can string it all together, make sure you know where the points of reference are is going to be pretty important because it's such a flowy circuit, you need to really make sure you understand where the car needs to be.”
Montoya was also asked about what he and PREMA had specifically worked on after Melbourne, and he revealed that they reviewed their approach from Round 1, to see how they can be better moving forward.
“I think just maximising what we can do, that's the biggest thing,” explained Montoya. “In Melbourne we were in situations where we didn't really have much to do and we just tried to maybe do a little bit too much.
“We tried to do things that were a little bit out of reach, and that impeded a little bit the results of the weekend.
“But I think the biggest thing is just staying in our lane. We know how good we are, we know how competitive we are and we just need to focus on that and maximise that.”
Looking ahead to the weekend, Montoya is confident that if he and PREMA do what they need to do, a podium will be on the cards.
“Obviously, I would love to say that a win here would be super special,” he said. “But for me, on one side it's just another race weekend. We have 14 race weekends, and this is really special. At the same time we can't forget what the goal is.
“We have to keep ploughing forward as we've been doing since last year. I think this year we have a lot of speed, we have a lot of momentum on our side because we've done such a good job since last season to keep improving and making steps here and there.
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“So I think the main thing this weekend is trying to focus on what I can do and then if the first win comes, I'm not going to complain. If another podium comes, I'm not complaining either because I wouldn't be surprised.
“But I'm not going to be focusing too much on that. I'm just going to be focusing with the team on making sure we maximise what we have and usually when we do that it's good enough for a pretty good result. So it's really exciting and I'm excited for what's coming this weekend.”