Taylor Barnard qualified on pole for Race 1 in Monaco, a year after his debut, but it fell apart after a collision with Wehrlein took him out of the points.
Last year in the principality, Taylor Barnard jumped into the NEOM McLaren for the race when Sam Bird crashed and injured his hand. In the race, he finished 14th and impressed the team enough that for Season 11, he had a full-time seat.
Since then Barnard has moved from strength to strength looking to break every record possible. Currently, he holds youngest, pole sitter, points scorer and podium scorer. The only one he is missing is the youngest race winner.
He put himself in good stead to achieve that in Race 1 in Monaco by beating out his mentor, Oliver Rowland, to pole. However, when it came to the race, he was involved in a racing incident with Pascal Wehrlein in the final stages that took him out of the points all together.
However, Barnard’s pace was undeniable. With Monaco being a double-header in Season 11 the Brit will get another chance at the win.
He told Fastest Formula News in the media pen after the race, “I don’t think we were in a bad position either, yeah I mean before the incident I was P4 and still pretty good on energy which you know is a good position to be in and with two minutes more attack mode than the first guys. A podium was looking promising, so looking forward to tomorrow.”
Damage limitation
Consistency has become more and more important over recent seasons of Formula E, with the championship going down to the final round in London last year. Due to this, Barnard recognised that leaving Monaco with points is the top priority.
He said, “In both situations, we looked pretty strong, but it’s important that we score some points tomorrow.”
Oliver Rowland has had an impressive start to the season and until his accident in qualifying he seemed almost unbeatable around the principality. Barnard took the opportunity and pole, but he recognised that tomorrow Rowland will no doubt be looking to make it a second win.
“I out qualified him but in this kind of situation in these races it doesn’t really matter too much, he did a great job in the race obviously congrats to him for the win, yeah going into tomorrow it’s going to be difficult to beat him, but I don’t think it’s impossible.“
Hard racing
The incident between Wehrlein and Barnard was deemed a racing incident, which with the nature of Formula E is fairly common. The Brit was clear that the accident won’t change his approach to racing in the streets tomorrow.
He told FFN,“I won’t change the way I race just because of an incident that’s for sure, I think it’s just one of those things that you see in Formula E that we’re racing super close, and it’s just one of those things you know it’s not going to change the way I race or the way that I approach anyone else.”
Barnard also had a few close calls in the chicane against Rowland, but they kept it clean.
Tomorrow will be an opportunity for all the drivers to repeat the work done today, improving on any areas possible. Barnard and McLaren will no doubt be searching for victory.
