Bianca Bustamante: 'It's Monza, anything can happen'

Bianca Bustamante's Qualifying performance at the Temple of Speed was a tale of two stories. The first spelled disappointment for the driver who will start Race 1 and Race 2 in P9 despite feeling like the pace was there to compete at the front. But after just a five minute gap between sessions to reset, the PREMA Racing driver successfully bounced back to start in P2 for Race 3.

Qualifying 1: Challenging Track Conditions

The wet conditions at the start of Qualifying and a few struggles in Free Practice left the Filipino driver low on confidence as she finished in P9 in the first outing of the day.

"I think in Q1 with the track condition, it was a bit wet when we went out, and not putting on new tyres yesterday meant my confidence was really not there. I made a mistake heading into T1 and had to use the escape road and was just driving very poorly. It was just a mental block because I knew within myself and the team knew I had good pace at Monza."

Qualifying 2: Ready to rebound

Despite the disappointment, Bustamante was quick to bounce back, with her confidence growing in each lap during Q2 as she battled Abbi Pulling for P1.

"We reset completely and just focused on Q2. In Q2 we delivered, in the end we were just short of P1, switching with Abbi in P1 and P2 for a couple of laps, but good job to her for putting in a really really good lap."

With the next race just round the corner, the PREMA Racing driver is ready to go at it from the off in her search for her second win of the season:

"I am going it straight away - it's Monza, anything can happen."