Singaporean Sean Hudspeth gives his thoughts after a strong performance in the season opener last weekend.
Sean got off to a solid start in the first race of the 2021 Italian GT Sprint Championship at Monza over the weekend, putting his AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo in P1 overall for both practice sessions on Friday. He carried the speed into Qualifying on Saturday, placing P2 overall and claiming the top Ferrari spot.
The first race was cancelled on Saturday due to poor weather conditions and postponed to the following morning, however, conditions were still tricky with half the track drying up and the other half still soaked in water. It was a race that required a gamble when choosing whether to start on dry weather tyres or rain tyres. Unfortunately, Sean and the team made the decision to do the sighting lap to the grid on rain tyres only to decide to put slick tyres while on the grid at the last minute. This meant that the tyres were not up to temperature and pressure which caused Sean to fall down the order at the start of the race as he struggled for grip. However, he and his teammate Carrie Schreiner fought back hard to finish P3 and on the podium in their class.
Race 2 saw the grid form up under dry conditions with Carrie starting P10. After successfully making up 1 position at the start, Carrie handed the car over to Sean mid-race, who began to hunt down the leading pack, posting fastest lap after fastest lap in his pursuit. Sean made short work of rival cars, managing to get up to P4 by the middle of his stint. Sean had just made a move for P3 in class when suddenly he was hit from behind and was spun off the circuit. He was able to continue but rejoined further down the order. Moreover, when Sean finished the race, he was informed of a team error in pitstop management which meant that they were handed a 1 minute penalty, putting them out of the points.
“Overall I think it was a solid start to the year and it was fantastic to be able to go racing again after a long winter break. For sure it’s a shame about the result but we have a lot of positives to take away this weekend as I was often the fastest driver on track and the pace in the car is very good. I would like to thank my sponsors, my teammate Carrie and AF Corse for making this all possible.”