Oliver Turvey returned to the scene of one of his most memorable victories so far last weekend when he made a one-off appearance in F1’s feeder series, GP2, at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Carlin Motorsport, with whom he won the World Series by Renault race at Monaco in 2009, selected him to replace one of their regular GP2 drivers who had been injured before the event and he was immediately on the pace.
Working with the engineers in this new GP2 team he improved the car during free practice and ran as high as P4 in qualifying before a competitor collided with him, putting him out of the second half of the session and causing him to drop to 16th as the track improved.
Faced with a tough grid position – and without pit-to-car radio after it failed on the grid – Turvey worked out an excellent race strategy, staying out longer than his rivals and posting some very fast laps in the middle stages of the race to rise through the field and finish seventh on the road.
“The strategy worked well as once I had clear track I was one of the quickest out there, setting quicker lap times than the leader,” said Turvey, who raced in GP2 with iSport last year. “In fact, I think if we’d stayed out longer we could have moved up even further, with fourth being very achievable.”
Turvey was later penalised 30 seconds as one of a number of drivers who had jumped the start and he added: “It was frustrating as I felt I did nothing different to normal so the sensors in the grid must have been very sensitive this weekend as many other competitors got penalties for jump starts too.”
Starting 15th on the grid for the second race, thanks to that penalty, Turvey made a couple of places on the start and was up to 11th after a clean and aggressive opening lap. He was one of the quickest on the circuit and held fastest lap of the race until the final few minutes.
“I would like to thank Carlin Motorsport for inviting me to race for their GP2 team in Monaco,” said Turvey. “It’s a very special place to race, especially for me after winning the World Series race there two years ago for them.
“It was a great experience, but it was a real shame I got hit in qualifying as we’d been competitive and I am confident we could have challenged for pole – and that would have changed the weekend completely.”