Mike Conway continues to show promise in Barcelona

13 May 2007

Mike Conway's promising yet character building start to his GP2 season with Super Nova continued at Barcelona on Saturday, when an excellent top five qualifying position was overshadowed by a first corner accident that forced him to retire. He then completed Sunday`s sprint race in 12th from near the back of the grid.

Conway started the third round of the series from fifth position on the grid, this despite the handling of his Super Nova-run car getting trickier as the session progressed. That led to a brief off-track excursion at the daunting fifth gear Turn 3, from which he and car escaped unscathed.

"The first run on new tyres was great," said Mike. "We made no major changes to the car, but as the track cleaned up, and more rubber went down, I suddenly developed too much front grip. That was annoying, because we didn't have enough front grip in free practice, so somewhere inbetween would have been ideal. Starting P5 is excellent, though, I'm determined to get a podium finish from there."

Unfortunately, his race did not go to plan. Mike was afflicted by a clutch problem at the start, which caused him to get off the line slowly. After recovering well from that, he raced wheel-to-wheel with former Jordan Grand Prix driver Giorgio Pantano to the first corner, where they made contact.

"I lost at least a second when the lights went out because of the problem with the clutch," said Mike. "I got up the inside of Pantano, but he just decided to turn in on me. We touched wheels, because we were totally side-by-side, and that sent me onto the grass."

That wasn't the end of the story. As Mike attempted to rejoin the track, he was hit by ex-Williams F1 racer Antonio Pizzonia and Xandi Negrao. The latter's car took off spectacularly over the back of Mike's car, putting them both out of the race.

"It was quite a big hit actually, it spun me right around," said Mike. "It's a shame, but I'll just have to try and do the best I can tomorrow from the back of the grid. We've stopped scoring points, so we've got to do something to start the ball rolling again."

Sunday's sprint race was much more valuable in terms of racing miles, and looked very promising initially as Mike made a much better start: "I rocketed away, and passed Pizzonia, but he powered past me again, and then I realised we weren't too quick on the straights and the race became very frustrating from then on."

Mike felt the lack of knowledge from Saturday's early exit was a root cause of him struggling for pace in the early stages. It took until the middle of the race for his front tyres to warm up sufficiently, and by that time he'd dropped back to 14th.

But a strong end of the race coincided with him catching Pastor Maldonado. Their battle culminated in a spectacular ending as they collided on the final lap, with Mike getting ahead at the cost of a torn tyre valve that meant he had to drag his damaged car across the finish line in 12th position. Maldonado didn't achieve that, and crashed out heavily.

Mike said: "I went up the inside of inside of him at the fast right-hander at Turn 8 and touched wheel-to-wheel. The front-right tyre valve was damaged, so I had to go straight through the final chicane and bring the car home."

Despite a touch weekend in Spain, Mike is confident of turning his fortunes around as the series heads to the glitz and glamour of Monaco on May 24-26.

"I think we're looking good for Monaco," he said. "I love street circuits and have a strong record on them, having won the Macau Grand Prix. It's the biggest race of the year and I think we can go well there."