Johnny Cecotto Jr. was in a mild state of shock after winning his first
GP2 race. And not just any race at that, but Monaco - the jewel in any racing series' crown.
"I can't describe it!" he gasped at the press conference after the feature race. "It's just amazing: to win here is a thing that only the top of the top have won, so to win here in Monaco is just amazing!"
While he'd led from the start with just a short hiatus from the lead while pit stops worked their way through the running order, and always looked fully in control of proceedings despite constant pressure from iSport's Marcus Ericsson, Cecotto insisted it had been an exhausting morning's work.
"To win in these streets, you have no time, not even a tenth of a second, to think of anything else," said the Barwa Addax driver. "Almost not even the time to press the button and take a drink, because if you let the steering wheel go it's almost a sure crash!"
For his part, Ericsson insisted that he had done everything he could to claim the win and had never given up hope.
"I think we were quicker than Johnny but he did a really good race and didn't make a mistake, and as you say I was just looking at his gearbox the whole way and just trying to stress him into a mistake, but he didn't do," he admitted. "You almost need the guy in front to make a mistake so you can get a run on him, otherwise it's too big of a risk to try and do something.
"The only place really I was look was down the hill after turn 4," he said, indicating the section of the track through Casino Square. "I was quite a lot quicker than him there, but it was too big a risk and he didn't do a mistake, so fair play to him, he did a good job today."
Caterham Racing's Giedo van der Garde joined Cecotto and Ericsson on the podium, and told the
GP2 Media Service that he was more than a little relieved with the result after a scare on the formation lap almost dumped him out of the race before the start: "I had a problem with the throttle: I couldn't get off the grid, I couldn't select the first gear, I don't know what the problem was but finally it came in, and then I had to pass everybody!"
Fortunately he had no such issues on the race start itself. "I was a little nervous, my heartbeat was quite up, but still I had a mega start: I was nearly second, but there was just too much risk with Marcus."
Van der Garde did manage to join Ericsson in squeezing front row man Max Chilton down to fourth place on the first run into Ste. Devote, however. The Carlin driver went on to lose another place to Davide Valsecchi during the pit stops and ended the day in fifth place.