‘I had to hold back tears’ – Paatz overjoyed after day of firsts for Aston Martin

Mathilda Paatz was jubilant as she rounded out an impressive Saturday in Montreal with her first series win in the Reverse Grid Race.

It was emotional day for Paatz, who took two trips to the podium in the space of eight hours. After leaving a challenging season opener in Shanghai without a point to her name, the 17-year-old bounced back, going fifth-fastest in both sets of Qualifying times.

Seizing her maiden podium in the Opening Race, Paatz put on a composed performance to inherit the Reverse Grid Race victory after a time penalty for leader Rafaela Ferreira — achieving Aston Martin’s first podium and win in the series on the same day.

“Incredible, it’s chaos!” Paatz reflected after the race.. “Coming from Shanghai, I was struggling and now coming here and having the first podium for Aston Martin and my first win as well on the same day, it’s quite overwhelming.

“I had to hold back tears in the car. It’s really an awesome day I’ve worked hard for and it’s great that it finally paid off and we can put in results.”

It was her overtake on Haas’ Kaylee Countryman for P2 that proved decisive, but the hard work wasn’t over. Radio problems left her engineer Eimear O’Connor unable to communicate with Paatz throughout the late Safety Car period.

Forced to rely solely on her own observations of Ferreira on the restart, the Aston Martin debated recreating her final chicane dive for the race lead but opted not to risk it once the penalty news came through.

READ MORE: REVERSE GRID RACE: Paatz snatches maiden victory in Montreal after last-lap drama

“We tried it a lap before but we didn’t really get the exit out of the hairpin that we needed,” she said when asked about the overtake. “On the next one, I prepared it really well. We had a great slipstream and the confidence was there to just dive in.

“I knew it was now or never. I knew we had the pace, so I made it stick. It was a clean move, so I’m very happy it worked.”

She added: “I was stressing. I didn’t know how many laps were left. I didn’t hear that Ferreira might have gotten a penalty. I didn’t know how many laps of the Safety Car were remaining. I was just out of the blue. I was really by myself, but I think it shows I’m a great racing driver because we made it work so well.

“I was really pushing to get first place. felt we had the pace and I was actually thinking about doing a move. After hearing at Turn 10 that she had a penalty, I backed off for the last chicane but maybe I might have done the same thing I did with Kaylee.”