Daniel Juncadella arrived in Monza vowing to turn a difficult season into a glorious finale and the Red Bull Junior Team driver was as good as his word.
After an almost perfect weekend at the Italian circuit, he took an emphatic victory in race one on Saturday and then sealed second place in the ultra-competitive Formula BMW Europe championship by following team-mate Felipe Nasr home for second in the Sunday morning season-closing race.
The Spaniard had endured a troubled start to the season, problems with his car meant the hotly tipped Red Bull driver missed out on a sequence of good results. Despite consistent points-scoring finishes, Juncadella went to the season’s final rounds with a mountain to climb, but after finishing third in the Sunday race in Spa he arrived in Monza with a real chance of second in the championship. And he didn’t let the opportunity slip.
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On a still-damp track after a torrential downpour a couple of hours before the Saturday race it was Mücke Motorsport’s Timmy Hansen who made the best start, but right behind him as they went into the first chicane was Nasr from seventh on the grid, with Juncadella moving to third from his fourth place start.
'I knew I had a really good car and a really strong performance' - Daniel Juncadella
By lap two Juncadella had taken the lead from Hansen with Nasr third. It was all Juncadella needed and despite the lead changing hands frequently as the long straights gave chasing cars a wide slipstream to slot into, Juncadella timed his move back to the front perfectly eventually retaking the lead on lap seven and holding station at the front to take the chequered flag in front of championship leader Nasr.
“It was really exciting and I had a lot of fights with other drivers,” Juncadella said afterwards. “It is always like this here with the long straights as you are always fighting, and with the damp conditions it is a bit harder but very exciting.
“I knew I had a really good car and a really strong performance,” he added. “In qualifying I couldn’t get pole, but I was focussing on winning this race. I managed to do a good first lap, but not a good start. Later in the race I had Rupert Svendsen-Cook in front and I was pushing with him to pull away from the group, but Felipe Nasr was really fast and so could catch us. But he is my team-mate and we knew our goal. We can help each other and that is what we did in the end to pull away.”
The win pushed Juncadella into second in the title standings, four points clear of rookie Robert Frijns, who took third in the opening race. A slender advantage, but with the Red Bull driver starting the Sunday race from third and Frijns in midfield for the finale, Juncadella had the upper hand.
Jim Pla made a good start from pole, but hot on his heels were both Nasr and Juncadella. By the end of lap one Pla had lost the lead and Juncadella had moved to the front with Nasr behind keeping the French driver at bay. Juncadella was eventually passed by title-winner Nasr and in the latter stages the pair expertly controlled the race despite a late charge by Doru Sechelariu.
“I managed to do a good start and was in front of Felipe Nasr and Jim Pla,’ Juncadella explained. “I was able to pull away a bit with Felipe, who was faster than me so I let him past. I followed him, he made a mistake and I also made a mistake in the same place. Sechelariu was catching us, but I was not worried as they key thing was that Robin (Frijns) was a long way behind me.”
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