Zane Maloney said he decided to “send it and hope for the best” as he took his third podium in the FIA Formula 2 Championship at the Silverstone Feature Race. 

Starting from seventh place, Maloney put on a show for the British fans as he climbed up to finish second behind Victor Martins.

The driver from Barbados made several important overtakes including a deep lunge past Ayumu Iwasa into Vale, as he forced his rival wide of the circuit.

He said: [My strategy was] just send it and hope for the best. You really need to be aggressive in this championship – everyone else is.

“It’s tough racing, but they would do the same in my position.”

It was a tough-fought podium for the Red Bull Junior driver during a race that was interrupted by three Safety Cars.

After the final Safety Car, Maloney might have had his eyes on the win, but had to defend his place from Arthur Leclerc, who was on fresh soft tyres.

Eventually Leclerc’s tyres faded, but Maloney found that race leader Martins had too much pace and managed to overcome a five-second time penalty to hold onto the win.

The Carlin driver was in constant communication with his team, who were pushing him on even when it seemed Martins was out of reach.

He said: “He looked like he was 20 seconds ahead, but the gap was actually not that big.

“[My engineer] Matt was talking to me the entire race, which is good if you’re catching but when you’re losing time it’s not so good inside the helmet.”

The 19-year-old has impressed in his rookie season, with several podiums now under his belt. Despite those results, he’s still focused on improving.

He said: “The main thing is to keep the bad rounds out of there – the last two rounds I didn’t score any points so that’s the biggest key.

“The race wins will start to come when I get more confidence and more points. Similar to last year in F3 I just need to stop making so many mistakes, I think today was a better race but I still have a lot to work on.”

Image: Formula Motorsport Limited