Vesti pleased with points but admits Qualifying is ‘holding us back’

ART Grand Prix’s Frederick Vesti enjoyed a positive Feature Race in Imola on Sunday, as he progressed up 10 positions during the outing to secure his first points of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season.

Vesti started the race from 16th on the grid, with an early Safety Car allowing him to ditch his super soft tyres for mediums. With some of his rivals ahead of him getting into trouble across the 35 laps of action, Vesti made up positions and crossed the line in sixth place, which saw him secure his maiden points in F2.

However, Vesti says that his Qualifying performance hindered his end result, as he asserts he had the race pace to compete at the front of the field.

“I’m definitely happy, it’s our first points of the season,” he said. “My teammate (Théo Pourchaire) won the race, I finished P6 from P16, it’s definitely a good result for us. We still need to work on Qualifying because it’s pretty much the only thing holding us back at the moment.

“In Race One, I was really strong. I had some good overtaking and good confidence. Again today (Sunday), we had a strong performance. We just need to get that qualifying right and start at the front and I’m sure we can have some good races.

“There’s still something to work on there, to build confidence. But to be in the points, to know I’m strong enough to overtake the top guys and fight with the top guys definitely means we’re in a better place than we have been. We’ll keep going forward.”

Vesti’s next outing in F2 will be at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain next month, a track that he knows well due to the number of testing laps he has carried out at the venue across his junior career.

The Danish driver is looking to make further gains at the next round of the championship in order to consistently compete inside the top 10 going forward.

“I think Barcelona is probably the home track of every single driver because we have done so much testing in all of our junior careers there,” Vesti said. “Everyone knows the track, it’s fair and square. It’s who puts the best (laps) together, who has the strongest car and who manages to do the best job. I’ll do everything I can to prepare as much as possible and then come back even stronger and make the progression I know I’m capable of doing.”