Paul Aron: A Race in My Words

Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Paul Aron has had an impressive rookie Formula 2 season so far and with seven podiums, he is currently tied for the most trips to the rostrum this year.
So, when we asked him to pick the best race of his career to date, it was not a surprise the Estonian driver picked one of those seven, and you can read below to find out why the third In Melbourne was so special.
“I think now would be a good time to choose the Melbourne Feature Race, it was definitely a very cool one. I managed to finish second after starting sixth and it was a crazy race to be honest.
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“We knew already from Saturday that some of the guys would start on the Supersoft tyre, but it had a lot of degradation, so we knew that Sunday was going to be interesting. We started sixth but I made a mistake with the upshifts so I actually lost two places, but being smart I managed to get them back at the exit of Turn 1 and then going round the outside at Turn 2.
“So, by the end of Lap 1, I was back to sixth maybe even fifth. At the beginning of the race, I knew that there was going to be a lot of degradation because I tried the Supersoft tyre on Saturday after having an incident and being at the back of the field, and I was very surprised to see how much everyone was pushing.
“So, it was quite difficult to take care of the tyre because I had Hadjar behind me who was trying to overtake. But after four laps, the degradation started to come and then everyone started to drop off massively and then I had a big pace advantage.
“I managed to overtake three cars, I overtook Pepe after he made a mistake, I overtook Richard Verschoor, and then there was a VSC and then I had a good restart and managed to overtake Zane before we boxed.
“The pit stop itself was a crazy one because the pit lane was really tight and the team in front of us had left their tyres out. So, there wasn’t a lot of space for me to pull away from the box, so I almost crashed in the pit lane pulling out of my box, I was fully sideways.
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“But the team did a good job and we managed to keep our position, and I exited the pits for what I thought was third behind Dennis and Kimi and then obviously Isack had a really lucky stop with the VSC and he managed to jump all of us.
“Coming out of the pits though, I did a very good job bringing the tyres up to temperature so I closed the gap to Dennis and Kimi in front and then Dennis had a crash and there was a Safety Car. After the Safety Car I knew that I would have to make the passes quickly to fight for the win because Isack was in front of me and Kimi, and it was easier for him to get through traffic.
“Kimi struggled to make the moves and I was stuck behind him for about three laps. I knew that if I wanted any chance of the win I had to go. I told my team that I had a lot of pace, but I am stuck here, so they said, ‘Just go for it’ and that’s what I did.
“I managed to do a double overtake, overtaking Kimi and also Taylor Barnard who was on old tyres and from then on, we had very good pace. We were matching Isack and at times were quicker than him and we came home second.
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“I even got the fastest lap, but then sadly at the end of the race, one of the drivers got a penalty and Jak Crawford got into the top 10 and he finished the race on the Supersoft tyres so he had the fastest lap, and I got my point taken away which was a shame.
“But it was a very good race to be honest, it was really well managed from me and the team, we were very quick on both tyres. I think we managed the Supersoft stint really well because I managed to keep my tyres alive longer than the others and made three positions in three laps at the end of the Supersoft stint.
“On the Mediums we were one of the quickest but sadly we didn’t get the win, but props to Isack, he was lucky with the stop, but he was quick after that as well and did some good moves. You can never predict what’s going to happen in F2 but still walking away with second place I was very happy.
“I really enjoyed the race, for me it was a proper F2 race, it had everything. I was fighting at the start, then there was huge tyre degradation on the Supersofts and I managed to manage the tyre well.
“Overtaking cars, boxed, came out the box, started pushing on cold tyres which was really difficult, Dennis crashed, we had a Safety Car, then crucial moves after the Safety Car which could have decided the race so for me there was everything.
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“There was good strategy, good tyre management, good pace and we tried to put everything together, so, that’s why it came to my mind. If I had to choose another one, I might have chosen the Bahrain Feature Race because that was a very good race as well. Especially at the end we had a five-second penalty there so the last few laps I was pushing like crazy to pull the gap.
“So, I would say Bahrain and Melbourne have been the two best races I have ever done in single seaters, so I am very happy with them.”