Aron on Baku Sprint fightback: ‘We did well to navigate the chaos’

Paul Aron made a late-race surge through the pack to secure Sprint Race points in Baku having started from P12 on the grid.
The Hitech Pulse-Eight driver says his race was fairly uneventful until a late-race Safety Car following a crash for Rodin Motorsport’s Ritomo Miyata.
From there, Aron says he had to navigate a lot of hurdles both with his own car and those around him as the race went down to the wire.
“The race started off seeming like it was going to be a very normal race in Baku I would say because there was not much overtaking, and everyone was quite clean,” Aron explained. “Starting P12, we needed some chaos to happen in front to get some points.
“Then we got the classic Baku story – we get a Safety Car, and everyone struggles to get the tyres and brakes up to temperature and then chaos unfolded after that.
“I managed to pick the right moments and get myself in the right position and gain some positions at the restart. I think I gained four places and got myself into the points which was super important.”
Diving into the specifics of how the restart went, Aron says that it was all down to picking the right moments to pounce on those ahead. The Estonian says that the battles around him meant he had to be reactive corner-by-corner.
The Hitech driver reflected afterwards that he’d been lucky with the timing of the Safety Car, but then he did the heavy lifting, picking the right moments to complete each overtake.
“These restarts are always nerve-wracking because there’s a long straight before Turn 1 and we were going slow at the restart. I could feel that the brakes and tyres were nowhere near ready, and we’d had quite a bit of degradation, but I think everyone had that.
“The more rubber the tyre loses, the less heat it keeps so it’s harder to keep the tyres up to temperature. But I just knew you had to be in the right spot because there was going to be chaos, and some wouldn’t take into account how cold the brakes and tyres were.
“I managed to stay inside in most of the corners which kept me out of trouble but the deciding moment at Turn 3, I saw quite early on the two guys in front were locking up and going straight so I managed to stop the car much more than I would’ve normally and basically go super tight and avoid all the chaos.
“In a way it was lucky I was able to choose my spots and there was room to go. But I think I did well to see ahead and predict those incidents.”
Looking ahead to the Feature Race, Aron says he is feeling much more positive after the changes the team completed overnight to improve their race pace.
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With the Sprint Race complete and more race data collected, Aron believes there could be another step in performance going into the Feature Race on Sunday.
Along with the changes the team are looking to make before then, he says that the races in Baku can always throw up a surprise or two, something he’ll be hoping for once again.
“Yesterday, we didn’t get it quite right, and we struggled with pace. We made a step forward today, but we knew that starting P12, we needed some chaos if possible. Up until that very late Safety Car, there wasn’t that much happening.
“We’ve had a tough run in the last four rounds and coming here we actually struggled with pace, but we were able to move forward, get the maximum number of points and to finish sixth was very positive.
“It always depends on how the races play out here because there can be a lot of chaos. So it could be a really calm race like in the beginning today, but we’ll see tomorrow.
Doing it all again won’t be easy but what I’m happy with is we made a step forward with the pace, and we have a good idea how to make another step forward for tomorrow.
“With a longer race tomorrow and with some strategy in play, it could be that we’re able to move up a few places and with the possibility of a Safety Car again, there’s always opportunities to move forward at this track.”
With Championship leader Isack Hadjar failing to score points after a difficult Qualifying himself, Aron says that it was another positive for the team to carry into the remaining five races of 2024.
While he has a 38-point gap to make up on the Frenchman, the Hitech driver says that he sees no reason why that deficit can’t continue to shrink if the team are able to maximise their pace in the remaining races.
“It’s hard to say. In the last rounds, we’ve taken two Pole Positions and one P3 in Qualifying but only have seven points to show for it, even though we’ve been quick and doing the right things.
“It’s hard to predict and seeing Qualifying here, the issues Campos had, it’s never really decided until the last race. We just need to work on our stuff, we’ve struggled for pace this weekend, but we need to work on that moving forward.
“As long as we do the best we can, whatever position we finish in at the end of the year, I’ll be happy. For that, we have to put in some work and make sure we use our potential to the fullest.”