Although it felt like a very entertaining race, there was some heartbreak for a few team at Baku. A few days after Baku, we asked the drivers on how they felt about the first race of the season:

I will forever be remembered in the dictionary as the definition of “underpreparedness”. Race could have been a nice challenge yet all I achieved was be a menace to other drivers on track. The only positive is that round 2 can only go better so looking forward to that, ~Sebastian Iordache

For me the race was very good, i reached my goal of finishing the race but i crashed into a wall at lap 16 at T2 so i had to do almost a whole lap with suspension damage so that was a bit frustrating but i managed to get the car back to the pits and finish the race and considering the fact that im not good at street circuits id say this was pretty decent result for me and im looking forward to the next race, i hope it will be better because its not street circuit. ~Michal Šulc

I enjoyed the race, there were some moments that really annoyed me, and even a day later, I’m still mad about. I just missed out on points potentially because of it, I am not going to name anyone but I think everyone knows who I’m talking about and I am pretty sure everyone knows how mad I am about it, I did finish the race with minimal damage which was nice, I was very close to my goal of top 10, finishing P11 it still good but it could have been more. I know I have more pace and I can definitely do better, in the end, I have to move on from it and focus on the next race. ~Tyler Schlebusch

I’m pretty happy about where I finished, but the race could have been a bit better if I didn’t hit anyone. Someone on lap 1 and someone in one of the last laps. Both spun in front of me. But overall I’m happy with where I finished to begin the season. ~Mike Van Der Burgt

I’m surprised with where i finished. I did not have the pace coming into the race and did not have a great first lap. But i managed to avoid more chaos on the first lap and drove consistently enough for the rest of the race to finish in a high position. I’m happy with the results, making it a great start to the season. ~Wesley Van Der burgt

Too close for comfort for my liking, pace on the mediums was lacking and that allowed Stattin to make a 3 second gap after pitstops, that’s what i’m going to try to improve for the next round, more tests on mediums. The battle overall was fun, going wheel to wheel through Castle section was deffinetly a highlight, even with it being Stattin that i’m racing, i was still praying that we make it through. But overall good way to start off the season, lot of points for the team aswell with Tomas’ good finish. ~A. E. Gavars

after a depressing lap 1 there was very little to gain cause pretty much everything was already lost, and after a pitstop blunder we can only say that this form will not repeat again. we are looking towards magione with a completely new mindset and hope as this is the first open track of the calendar. ~Simon Durkac

After bad qualifying the race was really tough one, the target was achieved finishing in points with both cars. Avoided collisions at first lap and gained some positions. Consistency were the key at the street circuit like this one except the few errors and spuns. Could had done better but in overall great race. ~James Flannagan

The crash of ghelos L1 was very unfortunate seeing how good he did in qualy, also for gruber i’d say it went good overall Who knows how it wouldve gone if i wasnt feeling sick. Qualy wouldve def gone worse since gruber is clearly faster than me so it wouldve been a total backmarker start for the race Idk how the race wouldve gone for me if i was there tbh ~Daniele Tallarino

Even though the race was tough, I finished in 15th place starting from 18th grid box. I had a collision early on, which made me pit and switch to hard tires. But having Evan Ghelos on our team has been great. His experience has really boosted our confidence and performance unfortunately he had some issues. We’re hopeful about our future races and are working hard to get better results. ~Lukas Gruber

If you want me to be serious its a good result, i tried to keep in the white lines and not push track limits because i didnt want any penalty’s. I want to find more pace in the car, im not confident going into next race its not a track im familiar with. I think Lobkovs result was good as well and i think hes been hard on himself he looked to have a couple incidents that didnt seem to be his fault. I think we both got good experience with the car in a race setting and know where we need to aim for and what we need to achieve to be fast consistently through out the season. i hope we can put it into practice. ~Cairan Yates

From my side race was quite interesting, but results disappointing. I’m really glad it was much cleaner then most of open-lobby races, even there was some incidents, it was not bad at all. I had some interesting fights at the middle of the race, I’m happy. ~Yuri Lobkov

Altough im not latvian, i am defenitly a junior, ha! this race was definetly fun, there were lots of incidents and crazy battles till the chequered flag. for me tho im not so happy of my results today, as i had the pace to be in the front, probably in third or fourth place, but destiny hit and i made two critical errors at the castle and lost all the positions, eventually i retired after a problem with the suspension made me hit the pit wall and destroy my engine, as i said already in the interview pre-race my big “weight” as always been that i am most likely to do incidents, as i lose focus quickly, but i am working on it and i believe that with the right training and experience by suzuka i will be on the podium, possibly winning, as Suzuka is my favorite track of the calendar, and previous races in the spark plug saw me close to the podium if not on the podium if i remember correctly, i got a great feeling for the rest of the season, and after all the 3 worst results are going to get cancelled, so i am going to forget about baku completly and start all over again with much more experience for magione, always aiming for the top of that podium. Thanks for the interview and see you at Magione! ~Goele Frisa

Although the no points result was disappointing, we learnt a lot from Baku. Personally, I believe we need to focus on improving our consistency to maintain peak performance even when undesirable events happen. There were laps where Ciro was battling for some really good positions and I feel I had my little share of bright moments as well. We are new to the racing scene, but, having competed in FPS games, we understand that adapting to new mechanics takes time and dedication. Magione will set us straight on our team objectives and give us a clerarer understanding of where we need to improve. ~Claudio Diana