Louis Sharp had a good weekend at the Monaco GP where he managed to claim two points finishes. With it’s narrow streets, the Monaco circuit offers a thin line between driving on the edge and ending up in the barriers, making it a difficult track for the drivers. Luckily, the rookie driver handled his first time around the track well, securing two ninth-place finishes this weekend. Sharp expressed the excitement of driving around the track and the expectation of chaos that Monaco brings, stating that:
“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,” he stated.
A messy Qualifying
After finishing seventh during the Group A Qualifying, Sharp ended up starting P13 in both races, as he finished with a 1:25.825, while the time for pole was 1:24.882 claimed by Nikola Tsolov.
Although the Rodin Motorsport driver managed to make up four positions, both in the Sprint Race and the Feature Race, he still wants to keep pushing. “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.” Sharp expressed.
The 18-year-old believes he could improve in the next couple of races and that there is an opportunity for more in the future. While Sharp was overall satisfied with the weekend, he thought Qualifying could have gone better.
“I think I learned the track fairly quickly, just made a mistake early on, which put me out of the sequence for qualifying and then I played catchup for the rest of the session, so qualifying was a little bit messy.”
Monaco is all about timing
The Rodin driver continued on to express that the race itself felt “pretty hectic” and that there is an emphasis on managing the tires while minimising error at the Monaco circuit. Sharp claimed: “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.”
“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.”
The team belong at the front
When asked about his performance, Sharp expressed that they “want to be at the front”, further stating that: “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”
The Monaco circuit, sometimes referred to as a “driver’s track”, is one of the places that truly test the capabilities of the driver and offers them the chance to make a difference. As it sometimes allows for driver’s to outperform their car, with the correct amount of risk and reward, it is a track where important for the driver to become familiar with it. The tiny margin of error that the circuit allows becomes important to play with in order to get the most out of it, which is why the first time around the circuit can be immensely difficult.
The Rodin Motorsport driver continued to state that: “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.”
The next challenge for the team will be Barcelona, and hopefully, they will manage to put everything together over the weekend. While it will be the rookie’s first time racing there, Sharp is familiar with the track as testing took place there. Perhaps that will help push the team forward and place them at the front where they want to be.
