León praises Van Amersfoort’s ‘progress’ after P6 finish in Barcelona Sprint Race

Noel León came through the field from P13 on the grid to finish in sixth place at today’s Barcelona Sprint Race, a performance that saw him laud his Van Amersfoort Racing team’s hard work.

The Mexican driver made a strong start to the event and steadily made a number of impressive overtakes on the likes of Leonardo Fornaroli and Arvid Lindblad.

León then became embroiled in a battle with Martinius Stenshorne and Laurens van Hoepen for P4 before a late Safety Car intervention was required following a collision between Sebastián Montoya and Gabriele Minì.

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Much to his frustration, the Safety Car was withdrawn on the final lap which meant he was unable to make further progress, forcing him to cross the line for a well-earned P6.

“It was a really fun race to be honest,” said the beaming León. “A lot of overtakes, great pace from the team, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the last five laps were under the Safety Car so we could not use our tyre advantage but super happy with the strategy.

“Obviously I was one position short to get the Sprint Race pole, so super happy to show the pace that we had, tomorrow I hope that it rains so that we can have more fun, but quite happy with my race.”

Talking through his start and his overtakes, León said: “I was in the right places at the right moment to make the moves. Obviously on the outside at the start, the guy on the inside has dirty air, so I was able to just go on the outside, so it was the right move.

“We wanted points, and we got it, but there were no risky moves to overtake because we know we have the pace. At the end of the day, I am quite happy, we finished the race in the top six. So, from here onwards I hope that we can stay in the points.”

This is León’s third consecutive points finish in a Sprint Race and each have come since the in-season test in Barcelona in April.

He admits that the three days of running did help but also mentioned that the pace has been there since the season-opener in Sakhir, but they just made tiny mistakes that put them on the backfoot.

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“I think the pace that we have here is what we've had in Bahrain and Melbourne, but we were just a bit unlucky with traffic and small mistakes from everyone in the team,” León explained.

“We are new working with each other, I'm a rookie as well so we have just been working hard all the time, putting a lot of work on the car. The team has been doing an amazing job, and we have showed our progress.

“I'm really happy with that and as I said after Melbourne, the European season will be a lot different. Happy we are showing that, and I hope we can still continue going forward.”

As for the Feature Race, León expects them to be similarly strong on Sunday, although he does hope rain comes into play.

“Here we have a really strong car in in-season testing,” he continued. “We showed that we are quite strong. Yesterday was just small mistakes, a bit here and there.

“The field is really tight, and half a tenth we would have been P11, and it would have been another story today because for sure with the pace we had we would have been on the podium. So, I'm confident that tomorrow we will have a good car in both conditions, dry or wet, but I hope that it is wet so that we can have some fun.”