Collet ‘sure’ he’d have been fighting for the win without stalled start in Race 3

After putting on a show in Race 3 at the Red Bull Ring with a remarkable recovery drive from last to seventh, Caio Collet admitted he was left with “mixed feelings” following two of the “hardest” weeks he’s had in racing.

The MP Motorsport driver punched in a time good enough for pole in Qualifying, but later saw his lap deleted for exceeding track limits. The Brazilian was then penalised for the same offence in both Races 1 and 2, resulting in two P17 finishes.

Lining up from fourth on the grid in the final race of the weekend, things didn’t get a lot better as Collet stalled when the lights went out and ended up at the back of the field.

Recovering to seventh eased the disappointment on what proved to be a tough weekend.

“We made a mistake with the clutch map,” said Collet on the reason for his stall. “Even in the formation lap, I could feel that it was wrong. To stall from P4 was really, really bad. From there, I had nothing to lose. I think the weekend was pretty bad overall, so I just kept pushing and tried to get into the top 10, which I did.

“At Turn 1, I was P30 and quite far from the group. I overtook some guys in Lap 1 and just kept my head cool and kept pushing. I was just overtaking when I could and I feel like I had a really good car, a quick car - especially in the high speeds.

“I was trying to follow everybody closely, and then in DRS (zones) I could overtake. It was good but at the same time I have mixed feelings.”

In the mix for pole in Qualifying, it was a case of what might have been for Collet, who has made the top five in each of the last two rounds, but he has just two points finishes to show for it.

“I think the car was mega again,” said Collet. “If we hadn't stalled, I don't know what would have happened, but for sure we could have been fighting for the win.

“The last two weeks are some of the hardest that I have ever had. After fighting for pole on Friday, you expect to win races and so on, but the last two weekends we have had quite a bit of bad luck, especially on Saturday in Austria.

“In Hungary, I expect to be fighting for pole again on Friday. From there, clean races with points on both Saturday and Sunday.”