Hugo Valente keeps third after post-qualifying investigation

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente will start from third on the grid for tomorrow’s first race of the day at Vila Real after the stewards deemed no action was required after the French driver exceeded the track limits at the end of his qualifying run.

There was concern that Valente’s position on the grid was in doubt after a question raised yesterday at the drivers’ briefing. It had been deemed possible for drivers to tackle the first chicane just after the finish-line in a way in which it was possible to gain an advantage for the preceding lap.

With Valente locking up into the chicane when he set his best lap of the weekend with a 1:59.333 in the one-lap shootout in qualifying, it was passed to the stewards to investigate.

“I braked a bit too hard,” said Valente. “I don’t think I braked too late, it was discussed yesterday at the driver’s briefing, but I braked on the line like I always do, maybe a little bit too hard and I locked up and went a bit straight, but there will be no surprise if you see my data.”

The stewards agreed with the 23-year-old, stating:

After reviewing car #7 telemetry data and comparing the Q3 sector times with the ones of his best lap in Q2, it was proved that threre was not (an) advantage gained by exceeding of the track limits.

Valente’s performance came as a surprise after the Chevrolets have struggled so far this weekend. Behind Valente, the next best placed Chevrolet is that of Stefano D’Aste in the Münnich Motorsport entry in 14th, leading the other four Chevrolets in 15th-18th.

“We’ve been working on the set-up a lot,” he said. “I made a mistake last year in Macau in practice and had a lack of laps, so the objective was to not crash the car and get confidence and then switch off your brain for one lap and go for it, so we’ve been working on the car.”