Sunday: Van der Garde completes an excellent weekend for Caterham
The Belgian weekend brought luck to the almost local of the stage, Giedo van der Garde, who confirmed his Q2 by finishing 16th, ahead of Pastor Maldonado. Charles Pic, on the other hand, had to retire very early in the race due to an oil leak.
Giedo van der Garde – 16th:
« My start was good. I had a clear run coming into the first corner and held 14th place until halfway through the second lap, but it was no longer really possible to hold off some of the cars that had started behind us. Realistically, we expected this so I focused on keeping Bianchi and Chilton at bay and giving myself more room to execute the planned race.
I started on a set of medium tires that we managed well. My first stop was on lap 15 and we put on a new set of hard tires, and I rejoined in 19th place. This set was working well until lap 26 when the rear tires started to give way, so we pushed for another two laps and made the second stop on lap 29. The final stint was on another set of hard tires and from there, I got rid of the two Marussia cars and had a really nice battle with Maldonado for 16th place right up to the checkered flag, fighting as hard as I could to hold on to that position.
Overall, it was a really good weekend. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if it had rained today, but for what was my first home race [Van der Garde is Dutch, ed.], I think we got the most out of the car. Saturday was an incredible feeling and I am really delighted that we were able to give the team, our partners, and the fans an opportunity to get excited during qualifying. From now on, we must ensure that we can do the same for the rest of the season whenever opportunities arise.
Charles Pic – Retirement:
« We started with a set of medium tires and I stayed on my line cleanly without any problem on the first lap. I passed Chilton and Bianchi, and by the eighth lap, I was catching up to my teammate but was told to come in because we had an oil leak, so we stopped the car to prevent any damage to the new engine we were using today. Racing is sometimes like that, we had a good pace on Friday and Saturday, the car seemed well-balanced and we made some progress. Even though the race didn’t go well, I’m not downhearted, we will have another chance at Monza to continue building on the gap with our rivals, and I’m sure we’ll bounce back there. »
