A tough end to the season for Singaporean driver Sean Hudspeth and JMW motorsport team after strong pace and performance in the race.
Sean Hudspeth gives his thoughts after a frustrating season finale in Portimao:
“After a great qualifying, Giacomo was hit on the first lap after taking the lead which damaged the front and floor of the car. This resulted in a loss of downforce and performance, as well as an additional pitstop to patch it up, costing us over a lap to the leaders.
A few laps later we received a drive through penalty for abusing track limits. Shortly after, we received an additional 5 second stop and go penalty again for abusing track limits. However, when we queried it, one track limit warning was revoked by race control but the second penalty had already been served, dropping us way down the order.
I got in for the middle stint and fought hard in tricky wet conditions on slick tyres, managing to make up 2 positions. Matty jumped in and made up another position but we got a 30 second penalty again for track limits after we crossed the line, which put us P7 in the end.
Even with the damage, our pace was strong and we worked out that without the time loss from the 3 penalties and additional pitstop to fix the damage, we would have crossed the line 20 seconds behind the leader, putting us P2.
It’s obviously heartbreaking to end the season like this but we take the positives and move on. Hopefully we can mount an even bigger challenge next year!” – Sean