Invicta feeling ‘very vindicated’ after Câmara’s Barcelona victory says Robinson

Invicta Racing Team Principal James Robinson is feeling a huge sense of relief after Rafael Câmara’s maiden Formula 2 victory in Barcelona.

The Brazilian rookie started from pole in the Feature Race for the second weekend in a row, after also lining up P1 in Monte Carlo, and on this occasion converted that grid slot into a win.

For Robinson, Câmara’s bounce back victory after his mistake in Monaco gave him the same sort of emotions that he had when Invicta won the title last season.

“I am really, really pleased,” he started. “I am also really relieved. I think that is the biggest emotion, it often is when you get a win.

“When we won the championship last year, I remember relief being the overriding emotion. I feel very much the same today. It’s great to finally convert the undoubted pace in Rafa's car into a win and points. It gets the championship campaign back on track.”

The strategy that won Câmara the race saw him go 22 laps on the Soft tyres before pitting to run the Hards for the final 15 laps.

Robinson admits he was nervous on the pitwall when his driver and engineer were making the calls, but credits their relationship for making it work.

“It was a really, really excellent strategy from him and his engineer and executed to perfection,” said Robinson. “I know there was a few comments on social media at the end of last week about the relationship between Rafa and his engineer.

“But I think that could not be more wrong in terms of the relationship there. Rafa, his engineer and the whole team have an absolutely magnificent relationship. Rafa's a brilliant part of the team.

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“We feel very vindicated today that we were finally able to convert the pace into points.

“But when Alex Dunne was still lapping in the low 1:32s whilst passing traffic and we were still lapping in the mid to low 32s in clean air, I've got to say, I did question the strategy call in my mind.”

Câmara came out in fifth place behind Dino Beganovic, Rafael Villagómez, Gabriele Minì and Dunne, but Robinson praised the quartet for the racing they put on show.

“The plan was not for him to come out behind Villagómez,” Robinson revealed. “The plan was for him to be clear of them in P3 and just have to deal with Minì and Dunne.

“I was a bit nervous, but then when we saw the first couple of sectors, he was half a second up per sector on his outlap and he's still getting his tyres up to speed.

“I think at that point we felt that the pace delta was really strong. Of course, you've got to make the moves on track, and that's not easy.

“We know that Alex is a resolute defender but both him, Gabriele, Dino, and Rafa Villagómez, raced very cleanly and fairly.

“Thanks to them for keeping it clean and also the whole field, there were no Safety Cars. I think it was a very meritocratic race in that respect.”

The weekend could have gone better for Robinson and Invicta, with Joshua Duerksen’s five-place grid drop for a qualifying infringement meaning that he didn’t line up in P2 where he had qualified.

Unfortunately for the Paraguayan he left Barcelona without any points, but his team boss retains a lot of confidence in his abilities.

“The downside of this job is that you very rarely have an occasion where everybody is happy in the garage,” Robinson continued. “Only one car can win. Of course, we were hoping for much better from car two today.

“He was running the same strategy as Nikola Tsolov and we know that Josh was very quick. He put a P2 on the road in quali. He was really, really unlucky with the grid penalty.

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“He started on the Prime tyres, and they struggled the first few laps. Tsolov was seven seconds behind whoever was in front of him after about five or six laps, everybody was struggling.

“We have complete faith in Josh. He's a really, really quick driver. He's shown in the last two years in F2 that he's very quick.

“He showed on Friday here that he's very, very quick. He showed in the first few rounds with us that he's very, very quick. He's a very, very capable race driver, especially in race situations.”

Next up is the Red Bull Ring, a track that Robinson is confident his team can go well around.

“It's a good track for us,” concluded Robinson. “We've often gone well around there. We said after Monaco, having had a couple of really disappointing rounds, that we were really looking forward to having a few consistent rounds at conventional racetracks.

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“The first four rounds of the season were all at street tracks, especially in Miami, Montreal, that we're unplanned, and Monaco is Monaco.

“For us to now have a round of tracks we know very well, where we have good data, you're not going to have as many wild card events like you have in Monaco.

“We've really got an opportunity to get ahead of steam up and score really big points with both cars.”