Rome crash forced Cassidy to be "a bit smart" in Monaco FE charge

At the second race around the Circuito Cittadino dell'EUR, Cassidy had diced his way through the field after starting 18th and was well in the points before contact from Sam Bird put the Kiwi driver into the wall.

Once again starting 18th in Monaco, Cassidy put together another characteristic rise through the order having been the first driver to take an attack mode activation, working his way through the field before encountering Maximilian Gunther.

Gunther was on considerably less energy than Cassidy but kept the Envision driver at bay. Thus, Cassidy instead elected to be patient, knowing Gunther was considerably down on energy, and explained Rome was in his mind in that situation.

That strategy paid off, and Gunther had fallen away by the end of the race to allow Cassidy to collect seventh.

"Of course, I knew he was way down and I had a lot more. But I was trying to be patient," Cassidy reflected

"In Rome, I went from 18th to sixth. And it was looking like more, but ended up in the fence.

"And this weekend, I couldn't afford to end up in the fence. I needed to get the points. And the gap in front of Max was quite big. So even if I'd caught him with three laps to go my results still would have been seventh.

"So, you know, we're put a bit more and more into a corner.

"In Rome, it wasn't my fault. The other driver [Bird] got a three-place penalty, but that doesn't give me my points back.

"And so even in this situation where the driver gets a penalty, it doesn't help my championship and so I needed to be a bit smart today - and that's how I got seventh."

Guenther's defence of seventh, according to Cassidy, involved moving under braking, which he was displeased with and hinted that he would bring it up in the drivers' briefing ahead of Berlin

"That was an interesting part of the race," Cassidy said.

"We speak a lot about in drivers' briefing about moving under braking and things and so I guess it'll be a topic that comes up again next drivers' briefing."

Cassidy added that he was "bored" of starting well down the order, having looked to have the pace to progress from his qualifying group before an incident at Sainte Devote ruined his chances of setting a quick final lap.

"I'm super happy with the race itself. But just man, I'm still so frustrated and gutted to be starting 18th. It's getting boring doing that! I just locked a wheel at the wall on the entry of Turn 1 in qualifying."