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Sharp: Monaco ‘lived up to the hype’ after two consecutive points finishes
Louis Sharp achieved two ninth place finishes on his debut weekend in Monte Carlo, and while he had hoped for better results, the Rodin Motorsport driver was pleased with how it all went.
The 18-year-old narrowly missed out on a place in the top 12 in Friday’s Qualifying, finishing seventh in Group A with a 1:25.825, 0.103s off Martinius Stenshorne in P6.
However, starting in P13 for both races, Sharp made his way forward to P9 in both the Sprint and Feature, and speaking at the end of the weekend, the Rodin rookie gave his thoughts on Round 4.
READ MORE: Round 4 Post Feature Race Press Conference
“It definitely lived up to its hype,” said Sharp on his debut Monaco weekend. “Qualifying and Practice, just doing laps around here is so much fun. The racing is incredibly hard, as we found out, it definitely lived up to the chaos.
“Overall, it was a good weekend, and I definitely enjoyed being here and looking forward to coming back, hopefully soon.”
Assessing his performance as a whole, Sharp said: “Overall, after Qualifying it's been quite a good weekend to make up four positions in both races. Obviously P9 is not where we want to be, we want to be at the front.
“I do firmly believe that's where we belong and that's where we had the pace to be. Saying that, first time in Monaco, majority of the grid have been here before, and it's not the easiest track to pick up.
“I think I learned the track fairly quickly, just made a mistake early on, which put me out of sequence for qualifying and then I played catchup for the rest of the session, so qualifying was a little bit messy.
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“I definitely had the pace to be right up there, but we didn't quite put it together. So, to get two points finishes after that, pretty happy, but obviously we still want more. We need to be at the front, it's where we belong, and it's where the team deserve to be.”
Sharp also gave his view on the battles in the midfield, as while overtaking was hard, the drivers had to be quite strategic in keeping their tyres in as best a condition as possible throughout the races.
“It's pretty tough to manage,” said Sharp on the battles in the midfield. “If you sit behind the car in front the whole race, you are going to shred the tyres, they are going to deg quite hard.
“It's about trying to time it, so you can kind of push up to them and get past them but obviously it's a lot easier said than done. Most of the race at the front, is push, cool, push, cool the whole race.
“It makes it interesting, you get gaps opening up and closing really quickly, especially towards the end, it becomes pretty hectic. So, it's about managing the tyres as best as possible and also trying to minimise risk.”
Next up on the calendar is Barcelona, a track where Sharp has also never competed. However, he does have experience of the Spanish venue from the 2024 post-season and 2025 pre-season tests.
“It's my first time racing there, as it's been my first time racing at all these tracks,” said Sharp. “Obviously we did some official testing there so we know the circuit, but I've never raced there before.
“I’m looking forward to it, it's quite a high-deg circuit, so I think the tyre management side of things is going to be pretty important. We were fast there in the pre-season test so I am hoping that continues.”