We already knew Marcos having run him in Spanish F3 for two years, so we knew he was talented – he was the Spanish F3 National Class Champion, so he’s good. He knows how to race, and especially he’s a very safe driver. We were happy he finished in Istanbul; we had been hoping he would get into the points, though that was maybe a little far-fetched given he had never done any GP2 testing before and the only other experience he had was attempting to qualify in Hungary.
Javi’s first race at Monza – when he climbed up through the field from 17th to sixth – was very satisfying, but then again we’ve kind of got used to that over the course of the season; he’s that driver who is just not satisfied with where he starts and will fight to the end. Monza admittedly was also a track he knew a little bit better than the other circuits having competed in Formula Junior there many years ago. Last year he did quite well there too and was so close to the points, so he felt confident and if you feel confident then you can plough through the field. Monza is a track with a lot of braking opportunities where you can attempt to overtake people. Javi took full advantage of that and he did very, very well.
Marcos was already quite buoyed about having actually been able to race in Istanbul – that for him was a big step – and he basically said he wasn’t looking for anything from this season. He even told us he wasn’t looking to score any points this year, what was important was just to do the best he could and if something happened it happened. He viewed it as his learning year to be able to be strong in 2008, so when something went wrong he didn’t get down about it, he just said ‘ok, let’s get ready for tomorrow and the next race’.
![Alfonso de Orleans Borbon - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/163611.jpg)
