Having taken heart from his performance at the British Grand Prix, Barbadian Formula 2 driver Zane Maloney is even more upbeat about the prospects for the remainder of the season.

Though he failed to secure a win, Maloney registered two podium finishes for his Rodin Motorsport team at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England. Those two second-place performances in the sprint and feature races, propelled Maloney back up the standings in third position on 101 points.

The 20-year-old is now 32 points behind Frenchman Isack Hadjar of Compos Racing, and 16 points adrift Estonia’s Paul Aron of Hitech Pulse-Eight, who occupies second position.

“To come away from the weekend with two P2s though, you can never complain. The only thing better is obviously Bahrain, but other than that, it’s the best weekend I’ve had in Formula 2, and I’m really happy about it,” Maloney said in an interview on the F2 website.

Still, Maloney believes the results could have been more positive had certain things gone their way.

“We struggled a bit in the sprint, but we know why looking back on it. Some things on my side, and some things that were out of our control, so we were confident going into the feature race even if it was wet.

Maloney in action (Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited).

“The feature was great. I think it was one of the best races I’ve done in a long time. Got a good start, made up three places up at turn 3, braking very late up the inside. We had great pace on the softs and the hards (tyres),” Maloney reasoned.

He continued: “I was having to push really hard to try and make the moves. I made a move on one of the Invictas I think, and then it was all about having a good pitstop.

“The team did a great stop, but unfortunately, I almost had a small crash in the pit lane, and I think that cost us the win. But after that, I had to push really hard to keep [Prema Racing driver] Ollie [Bearman of Great Britain] behind, killed the tyres a bit too much and struggled a bit at the end.”

With his next assignment being the July 19-21 Hungarian Grand Prix, Maloney believes his Rodin team are now well-placed to challenge for the Championship.

“I’ve never felt we were really out of the game to be honest. We’ve had one round that we struggled with pace in general, which was the [previous] round [in Speilberg, Austria], so to bounce back from that was amazing from the team,” Maloney declared.

“But for seven of eight rounds, we’ve been up there, on the pace and on the money, so I’m confident about the weekends to come, we just need to be focused on executing each session as well as possible. Still, somethings to improve from my side, but that’s the thing in general as a racing driver, but I think we’re back in the fight,” he added.

After Hungary, the championship will move to Belgium for July 26-28 action, followed by Italy for action from July 30 to August 1. The Azerbaijan meeting follows on September 13-15, with the November 29 to December 1 Qatar meeting, and Abu Dhabi action from December 6-8 to bring down the curtains on the season.

Barbadian driving sensation Zane Maloney is focused on consistently improving his performances, as he seeks to continue building on his sweep of the Formula Two season-opening events.

Maloney’s comments followed another positive weekend in Melbourne, Australia, where he again made the podium after finishing third in the feature race, on the heels of a 10th place finish in the sprint a day earlier.

This latest podium adds to the 20-year-old’s sprint race and feature race victories on the opening weekend of the season in Bahrain.

“Satisfied but of course we just need to keep making steps forward. I think we have showed the last three rounds that Bahrain wasn’t a fluke. We have had the pace each round. We just need to keep working on it,” Maloney said in a post-race press conference.

“I think qualifying from my side is much better than last year. I just need to keep improving that. We have always been fast in the race and made good moves, so we just need to keep going. Everyone is catching up, so we need to keep performing well,” he added.

In the feature race in Melbourne, Maloney, who drives for British team Rodin Motorsport, finished third behind 19-year-old French-Algerian driver Isack Hadjar and 20-year-old Estonian Paul Aron.

Two weeks ago in Jeddah, Maloney trailed in seventh in the feature and just missed out on a podium place in the sprint race when he ended fourth.

He was left ruing his luck again last Saturday when a costly error left him down the field instead of near the podium.

“Should have been a podium. From my side, I made a big mistake which lost me lots of places. But the second half of the race was really good from my side, so I am pleased with that. Happy to be back on (the podium after a) bit of a chaotic race. For sure the pace has been good all year so far. I think we have proved that each round. It is cool to have a clean Feature Race,” Maloney reasoned.

The Bajan sensation’s next assignment will be the May 16-18 Grand Prix at Imola.