Montoya delighted with points finish at ‘special’ Silverstone Sprint Race

Sebastián Montoya was incredibly happy with his fightback at the Silverstone Sprint Race after going from starting in P17 to finishing in seventh.

The Campos Racing driver was unfortunate to miss out on a place in the top 12 in Friday’s dramatic Qualifying. However, he returned to the Silverstone track on Saturday looking to capitalise on the strong pace he and his team had shown, and the Colombian feels he did just that.

“It was good. I think that's the simplest answer, it was good,” said Montoya reflecting on the Sprint Race. “Obviously, Silverstone is a very difficult track, very high-speed corners, very hard on the tyres.

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“It's not like any other track where there is a lot of slow speed corners and you can get away with pushing the tyres, this is just constantly pushing and pushing and pushing, so obviously it's really difficult on the tyres.

“The car felt really good, really hooked up. I tried to get a good start, I was able to pass a couple of people and then lap after lap I just kept pushing, minimising my mistakes. The whole grid has been really good here and it’s been quite tight, so it was quite difficult to overtake, and we were kind of on a DRS train.

“But I was actually quite happy with it, especially towards the end when I was able to pass Sami Meguetounif and get behind Gabriele Minì because I was struggling quite a lot with the tyres and when he made the mistake, I was able to capitalise, so I was quite happy with that.”

While Montoya was keen to minimise his mistakes, the consequence of his drive through the field is that he did have slight contact on a couple of occasions. Talking through his evening, he admitted that there were times he felt his race was done.

“Luckily I was able to keep it clean,” he said. “I was trying to be really aggressive and get through everyone, but everyone was also trying to be really aggressive, so I had a bit of contact here and there, but it was minimal.

“Obviously, you want to avoid that, so I got lucky with a couple of contacts here and there. There were two, especially one with Laurens van Hoepen, that was quite hard, so I was quite nervous I was going to get damage from that, but I just wanted to capitalise.

“The team has done an amazing job and basically all the rounds I have been overtaking people in the races, so being able to capitalise on that was nice. I was quite happy with this and obviously being in Silverstone makes it all the more special.”

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Asked what makes Silverstone special, Montoya said: “For me it's the fact that my dad won here, when I was around one-year-old and he put me inside the trophy when he won. My mum raised me up like the Lion King scene when he won, so that's really special.

“Last year also leading the Sprint Race and then getting taken out from the lead was quite devastating. So, just being able to bounce back, I'm sure that the speed here is quite good, just honestly makes it really fun.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow which will be a 22-lap race instead of 18, Montoya is hopeful of doing the same although he feels he and the team have some areas to work on heading into the event.

“I feel quite good,” he said previewing the Feature. “Obviously, the Feature Race is always quite different to the Sprint. The Sprint is always a bit more chaos, the Feature is a lot more speed, so we are working with the team to try and understand what we can do for tomorrow to try and make a big step and just keep working at it.

“The team has done an amazing job, just having improved the car this year from the beginning of the year to now they have developed it quite well and we are getting stronger and faster every weekend. So, we just need to keep doing that and hopefully tomorrow will be a good one.”