Imola – the old Grand prix venue near Bologna - played host to the GP2 Asia Series last weekend as a replacement for the cancelled Bahrain races. This was an unknown track for Max and although he got to grips with the challenging circuit very quickly, he struggled to get the results he’d hoped for.

A 21st place finish in Saturday’s feature race was followed by a better performance in Sunday’s sprint where he came home 15th. Both results were directly affected by a surprising lack of pace in qualifying after the 19 year-old had been 7th fastest in Friday’s practice session.

Max very maturely took all the blame for the disappointment in qualifying and learnt a few important lessons in the races as well as he explained;

“I thought we were looking good on Friday morning. I was still learning the circuit, but I was 7th fastest in practice and the car felt great. Then in qualifying I just tried too hard really. I thought I could find more under the brakes, but I was already on the limit so pushing even more on the new tyres just killed my exits and the overall lap-time as a result. So to be down in 18th in qualifying was down to me and I paid the price for that in the races.”

In the first race Max worked his way up steadily to be battling with fellow Brit Oliver Turvey over 15th place, but his tyres were suffering and it wasn’t a battle he was going to win;

“I think the close racing had hurt the tyres more than we expected,” Max said, “I had absolutely no grip by the end of the race and was just trying to stay on. I lost a lot of places over the last few laps, but there wasn’t a lot I could about that.”

“Sunday’s race was much better for us. I dropped back at the start as I could see the first lap incident kicking off and then I was determined to make sure I finished. I had a close race with Luiz Razia, but this time I also tried to look after my tyres more and that paid off. Rather than lose places, this time I had really good race pace and could keep the pressure on when I wanted to. 15th place is better, but obviously not where I, or the Carlin team, want to be racing. I think the important thing for me from this weekend is what I’ve learned from qualifying and my how to get the best performance out of the Pirelli rubber.”

The GP2 teams have a few weeks to prepare now before two test sessions at Silverstone and Barcelona in April. The next races will be the start of the main series, kicking off with the Turkish Grand Prix support at Istanbul on May 6th.