FIA Formula 2: Welcome to the press conference for this evening’s Feature Race here in Abu Dhabi: joining us are race winner Oliver Rowland from DAMS, in second we have Artem Markelov from RUSSIAN TIME, and in third is Antonio Fuoco from PREMA Racing. Oliver, congratulations on your third feature race win of the season: how difficult was that one to judge?

Oliver Rowland: Yeah, it was pretty tough. Nobody knew about the tyre deg when they went one step softer for the prime, but usually the soft is pretty good: compared to the medium there’s never much difference. It was difficult to gauge after the pitstop: I knew the first 6 laps would be a nightmare, because with the supersofts you have to be so careful. I think I managed pretty well, although I had a big lock up with 2 laps to go for the pitstop, which cost me a bit of time because I had a big flat spot. After the pitstop Artem struggled a lot on the braking, I think, and he couldn’t stop the car: I managed to get quite close and I knew that if that was me then I’d be quite cautious, especially into turn 8, because if you have a big lock up on the second lap of your stint it’s not good for the rest of your race! I decided to go, and I knew I needed a good exit because of DRS: my engineer was keeping me up to date on Charles’ times as well as Artem’s: I think Charles had pretty good pace and I was a bit worried he was going to come, so I just pushed and pushed, and found some tweaks with the brake bias and things like that to help with my degradation. That really helped me to get to the end pretty quickly, and the team have done a great job.

FIA Formula 2: How crucial were the moves on other traffic to not lose too much time?

Oliver: It’s always tricky: you don’t want to follow in the last sector! I was a bit annoyed when I got to Albon, because for some reason in the first DRS zone it just switched off: I got the green light but it went no, you can’t have that! I managed to follow him the whole rest of the lap and managed to keep the DRS, but I was pretty mad at that point and he was close to me, I had a couple of wheel spins, and I had say to myself calm down, you’ve passed them all now, do your race and go. Luckily after that I managed to recompose, and everything was fine.

FIA Formula 2: Congratulations. Artem, starting from pole but finishing in P2 isn’t great, but how was the race from your seat?

Artem Markelov: I’m still feeling not too bad! [laughs] I had a really good start and tried to get a gap to the guys behind, but I was also trying to calm down because of tyre degradation of course: I was just trying to look after them, and after changing the tyres I was really struggling on the first 2 laps because I was trying to brake but the car was nearly locking the tyres and I had to brake with the rear, so that’s why he was coming really quickly to me! So it’s not bad: we’re trying to get a better feeling for tomorrow, and trying to get P1.

FIA Formula 2: We saw you pushing hard at the end of the race, but was your focus forward on Oliver or backwards on Charles?

Artem: Not that, and not that actually! [laughs] I saw the gap to Rowland, and I was trying just to relax and try to get those 4 or 5 laps, because my engineer was saying to me that Charles was starting to drop a bit, so I wasn’t so worried about Charles behind.

FIA Formula 2: A good recovery after a poor start: how was that for you?

Antonio Fuoco: I did a very bad start, and I still don’t know why so we have to investigate it, and after the first lap we had a small contact with Charles in turn 8 which I was a bit worried about, because maybe he broke my front wing, but in the end it was good. After the pitstop I think I lost a bit too much time, and then at the end of the race when I started to push the pace was quite good. We are quite okay tomorrow, and I would like to thank Charles for slowing on the last lap and he did a very good thing for me to go through, and it is good for the team.

FIA Formula 2: You didn’t seem to like the pace on the soft tyres later in the race: do you think if you’d made a good start and had a clear run you could have challenged these two for the win?

Antonio: Yeah, I think so: if I was behind Oli and Artem they were both on softs too, and maybe I could have managed them more and push at the end, and we saw that in the end the pace was very good, so I think we could have done something better.

FIA Formula 2: Oli, this almost wraps up 2nd in the championship for you, but how important is the Teams’ championship to you?

Oliver: Yeah, it’s obviously important for them, and you get the status of 1 and 2 on the car next year which is good bragging rights! Basically for me I wouldn’t be here without DAMS, and I feel I owe them quite a lot: to give them the Teams’ championship would be great, especially with Nicky as well being a good teammate. We’ve pushed the team extremely hard this year and they have delivered with the car, especially in the races: everyone will probably have their reasons for their team deserving it and that’s mine, and I’ll do everything I can tomorrow to make sure we do it.