Manor Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein says his first Formula One weekend around the streets of Monaco has been tough despite finishing a solid 14th place.
After being out-qualified by teammate Rio Haryanto in qualifying, Wehrlein recovered and put together a solid race to finish just 7.7s behind Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean.
Wehrlein was hit with two 10-second time penalties, one for ignoring blue flags with the other for going under the minimum required time under VSC leading to four points being added to his license.
“Today was quite tough to be honest. Early on in the race, with the track staying quite wet, we decided to stay out on the extreme tyre and run longer. With other cars pitting earlier onto the Inters, we had track position and when we did stop we actually managed to jump some cars. So that strategy worked perfectly. We were able to keep the Haas behind until the chequered flag but with the penalties the race got away from us and we dropped behind.”
“It’s disappointing, but going into the race 14th might have looked like a good result. It’s been a challenging weekend but also very exciting to be racing in Monaco for the first time and disappointments aside I have really enjoyed the experience.”
