Villagómez aiming for more on Saturday after drive to P8 in ‘crazy’ Baku Feature Race 1

Rafael Villagómez survived a potential race exit to come through the field and finish eighth in the Baku Feature Race 1.

The Van Amersfoort Racing driver started the race from 16th and maintained that position for the early part of the race, before being involved in a multi-car collision.

At the Safety Car restart, Villagómez was part of a group of drivers that collided at Turn 3, but while the rest had to retire, the Mexican was able to bring his car back into the pitlane.

The VAR driver started from the back of the field in P14 but immediately overtook Emerson Fittipaldi.

Villagómez then picked his way through the rest of the pack to get into the points, taking the chequered flag in P9 before gaining a place once Kush Maini’s five-second penalty took effect.

Speaking in the paddock afterwards, Villagómez said: "It was crazy. At one point I was out of the race. But the team did great. I just stayed in the car and that's allowed.

“I knew I had some front wing damage, but not enough to stop, and we just went back. We knew since this morning the pace was strong, but at the back we were just so messy, anything can happen.

“We were involved in unlucky situations in both of the races today. But at the end of the day, today where the points matter, we managed to get some.”

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Villagómez was 17th in Qualifying 1 and 13th in Qualifying 2, but in both races has managed to make his way forward.

The VAR driver feels he and the team were unlucky on Thursday but knew they had the potential to do well in the races.

“In Qualifying we were really unlucky because we were one of the last ones in the pit lane,” said Villagómez. “So we always got a yellow flag in the T1 or some traffic.

“Actually I didn't do any laps in Quali 1. Then Quali 2, basically we got lucky one lap and that was what I got for qualifying. So it was a shame because we knew the pace was much better.

“The racing is what matters and we had the pace in the race, so that's good. I don't really know what happened in the incident. If you ask me, all I know is I had a front wing under my car.

“The marshals asked me to get out of the car like a hundred times. But I was telling them to wait because I can restart. We did the procedure right. The team was super helpful on the radio, and we just changed our front wing and went again.”

Looking ahead to the final Feature Race of the weekend on Sunday, Villagómez is aiming to score more points.

“We know the pace is good,” he added. “In Baku anything can happen. It's really messy. A lot of 90-degree corners where two or three cars want to go side-by-side and it doesn't happen. So we'll see. We just try to do our job, try to be lucky and we'll see what happens.”