Zagazeta delighted with his best Qualifying of the year in Monza

Matías Zagazeta was delighted with his performance on Friday afternoon in Monza, sealing his career-best Qualifying result in Formula 3.

The DAMS Lucas Oil driver had shown good pace throughout the day, having ended up sixth fastest in Free Practice in the morning.

Zagazeta followed that up with a strong run in Qualifying and with his final attempt completed a 1:38.482 to put him up to fourth in Group B.

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This means the Peruvian is set to start from seventh in Sunday’s Feature Race and sixth in Saturday’s Sprint, and looking back on the day, he was very proud of his performance.

“I'm quite happy to finally get my best quali of the year,” said Zagazeta. “It's a shame it has come quite late, but we have been working quite hard with the team, so it's nice to see that we have been making progress and improvements.

“From my side, the lap was really good, just made a small mistake, which was a shame because I think with a bit more of a tow, there was a bit more to extract but honestly it was really close.

“I am quite happy with my result but it's only one part of the weekend done, we still have two more races. So we need to get some good points to try and climb up one position in the Teams' Standings and for myself to try and climb up the Drivers' Standings as well.”

Zagazeta was also pleased that he alongside his Group B rivals were able to learn from what happened in Group A, where several drivers chose to come out late and could only complete one push lap.

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The DAMS driver and the other 14 drivers all came out at the green light, using the full 10 minutes of track time. He believes this made a huge difference when it came down to it all.

“I was hoping nobody was going to do the same as Group A,” recalled Zagazeta. “I think everyone learned and everyone went quite early. It was pretty good, it was just one section everyone was going quite slow.

“But then it was pretty straightforward, it was quite a clean session, we got more laps than the other group which was pretty good.

“Overall I am quite happy with how the car felt, and with my performance too. It's the maximum we could have extracted today, so need to focus for both races, but grateful Qualifying was a bit more relaxed.”

Attention turns to both races to come and while Zagazeta knows there will be plenty of work to do on both days, the dream of at least one podium is very much alive.

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“It would be fantastic,” said Zagazeta on the prospect of a podium in Monza. “It would be fantastic for myself and the team. It doesn't change a lot on things but it's going to be a great result for myself and big confidence boost for the team.

“Usually the whole year it has been the opposite. We have been struggling with quali pace and race pace has been quite strong. So now we have found the quali pace and I am confident our race pace is also quite strong.

“So it's going to be about being clever, and picking your moments, knowing when to attack, when to defend, and when to overtake. So I need to be very clever with my racing and hopefully finish on the podium in one of the two races.”