PORTIMAO (POR) 20 SEPTEMBER 2009:

Edoardo Mortara finished his final race of the 2009 GP2 Series with the type of aggressive and determined drive that has been the hallmark of his debut season in the championship. From a grid position of 20th, he rose beautifully through the field to take 11 positions and finish ninth.

Edo, whose Saturday feature race had ended at the first corner after contact, was promoted to 20th on the grid from 23rd after penalties were applied to three of his rivals following yesterday's race, and the Italian was lucky to avoid the stalled car of Vitaly Petrov at the race start. Michael Herck was not so fortunate and with debris littering the track, the race was red flagged and the restart delayed.

When things got back underway, Edo raced hard and fought past a number of his rivals to sit ninth, just a few places away from a points finish in his last race of the 2009 GP2 Series championship season.

Edo thus finishes his debut year in the GP2 Series in 14th position in the championship and as the fourth best rookie of the season. With a race win under his belt and knowledge of the series, its tracks, and the high level of competition on display, his motivation for 2010 is stronger than ever.

EDOARDO MORTARA:

Normally when you start P20 and you finish ninth you should be happy, but we didn't have the pace to compete with the top six guys today. I had huge clutch problems on the grid and I nearly didn't get away from the grid. We cleaned the clutch overnight rather than changing it, and that might have been a mistake as it wasn't great. Then I raced with steering that still wasn't straight. We tried to fix it after qualifying but it wasn't sorted. So not a good race at all.

I made some good overtaking moves, but I was struggling so much with the car and we had very slow pace at the end.

It's not the way I wanted to finish the season, but 2009 has been a very interesting year. Getting a race win in Barcelona was amazing, but since then we have just had so much bad luck. To be honest I'm happy the season is over now and I can look towards 2010 with confidence.

TELMEX ARDEN INTERNATIONAL CHIEF ENGINEER - MICK COOK:

Obviously this race was a fairly bizarre race the way it turned out with the big accident at the beginning, but Edo did well considering where he started. I think he did OK today.

As for the season as a whole, I'd say we showed promise. Maybe winning so early in the season was always going to put more pressure on him and make the rest more difficult, but you can't turn down those chances when you get them. It's a difficult formula, and he'll be a lot better equipped for next year.

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