Delighted Hatton says Aron’s Qatar win was “a long time coming”

Hitech Pulse-Eight team manager Clive Hatton says he and the rest of the team are “delighted” for Paul Aron after their rider took his first win of the year in the Lusail Feature Race.

Aron started the weekend as the championship leader with three pole positions and seven podiums, but the 20-year-old had not yet secured his first victory in the championship.

But the Estonian rider came through in Lusail and led practice before securing pole. He won Sunday’s feature race despite finishing second away from home, benefiting from Gabriel Bortoleto’s five-second time penalty to secure victory.#

READ MORE: Goethe was thrilled with his confident performance in the Lusail Feature Race

Speaking in the paddock after the end of the weekend event, Hatton was delighted that Aron’s hard work was finally rewarded with a win.

“We’re all absolutely thrilled, it’s been a long time coming,” Hatton said. “He started from P1 today and anything can happen in a main race, it’s happened before and it didn’t go our way and we didn’t know what would happen today.

“Of course Bortoleto caught him at the start of the race, but fortunately for us and unfortunately for Bortoleto, he got that five-second penalty and Paul just managed to catch up to him and we ended up winning the race.”

“I’m happy for Paul, he’s put a lot of hard work into this weekend over the ten week break, doing a lot of simulator and a lot of work with the engineers to make sure the car is right. It paid off for him and I’m happy for him.”

It was a very successful weekend for Hitech as Aron’s victory gave him 163 points, meaning he travels to Abu Dhabi 25.5 points behind leader Bortoleto with a chance of winning the Drivers’ Championship.

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Additionally, Amaury Cordeel’s seventh place finish in the feature race, along with the win, helped Hitech jump to fourth place in the team standings with one lap to go, ahead of PREMA Racing and Rodin Motorsport.

For Hatton, the 13th round was more beneficial to Hitech’s season in terms of standings and morale.

“It’s pretty tight in the midfield we’re in at the moment,” Hatton said. “It’s great for Amaury too, he’s worked hard too, he seems to be better in Abu Dhabi, the momentum will be for him to get there now, so I’m happy for Amaury.”

“As I said, after this ten week break focusing on just two tracks, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the hard work has paid off for the team and for Paul. Hopefully we can take this momentum with us to Abu Dhabi.”

READ MORE: Press conference after the 13th lap of the race

Looking ahead to Abu Dhabi, Hatton says he is going into the weekend with no expectations of the results as “anything can happen”, particularly now that the more difficult round to prepare for in Qatar is behind him.

“I think everyone is on a roll,” Hatton said. “The more difficult thing is Qatar because it is like the first day of school after such a long break, but before Abu Dhabi everyone will be in the swing of things and the riders will have a rhythm so everything should run smoothly.”