Viscaal on his “incredible” last lap battle with Zendeli

Bent Viscaal crossed the line in P1 for the second time in 2020, in Race 2 at Silverstone, but it’s the first time he’s done so as an official race winner, and, the Dutchman says it’s worked wonders for his confidence.

Despite a sublime drive at Round 3 in Budapest which saw him finish in P1, Viscaal was denied the race win due to two five second time penalties that plunged him out of the top ten entirely.

He was once again in fine form in Round 5 at Silverstone and crossed the line ahead of Lirim Zendeli. There would be no penalties this time and the MP Motorsport driver was finally able to taste the champagne from the top step of the podium.

“I was already quite close in Budapest, but to do it here in dry conditions, was of course very good for the confidence and shows that we are competitive in the dry.

It was very difficult to stay in the dirty air, but we already balanced the setup a bit, so that we could follow in dirty air, which paid off in the end.

“I was able to manage the tyres because of this, and of course, the last lap was a bit chaotic, but it was absolutely brilliant.”

Viscaal’s first win was certainly a dramatic one. He had spent the entire race in the wheel tracks of Zendeli, but entered into an astonishing last lap brawl with the Trident racer for the lead.

The duo swapped positions twice over the course of the final tour of Silverstone, and the tussle was only resolved by a drag race to the line, with Viscaal finishing just a car’s length ahead.

“The fight with Lirim was incredible, it was very fair but hard. Thank you very much to Lirim for keeping it clean and fair. At the moment, I couldn’t be happier with the result.

“From the car, it was pretty hard because of the dirty air. I got a lot of understeer, but after the safety car I left a little bit of a gap, just to stay in DRS, while allowing me to still be able to fight him in the end.

“I knew I only had one lap to do it, and he made a bit of a mistake in Turn 6, which of course opened the gap in Copse. After that, around the outside of the last corner, was great.

“Before the race, you set yourself some places where you can overtake and this was one of them, so it was really nice to see the preparation play off.”