It’s been four weeks since the last GP2 Series round in Monaco, so it’s been a long time without racing, but now I’m getting ready with the DAMS team for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix support round at the Red Bull Ring.
Since Monaco I’ve been doing a lot of simulator work at the Williams Formula 1 team, and quite a bit of work experience there too. Working through the departments there has been really good – they’ll be putting me on an engineering degree before you know it! Also I’ve been doing a lot of training, so really I’ve been so busy I don’t know where those four weeks have gone.
The last bit of preparation before Austria entailed going over to DAMS on Monday evening this week. They’re based in Le Mans so I went over on Eurostar and caught the TGV, before heading up to Paris on Wednesday with the team so we could fly to Austria. The traffic was terrible around Paris – let’s hope it’s the last time I complain about traffic this week!
The Red Bull Ring is a circuit I like. I won there in GP3 last season, and the track is in a beautiful location in the Austrian Alps. Monaco was disappointing for me, but before that I’d won at Barcelona, so I’m hoping that the Red Bull Ring will restart my season with a good weekend.
There have been a lot of discussions at DAMS, where we’ve been reassessing our start to the year. We’ve had so many good aspects of the season so far, but also so many reasons why we haven’t banked points. The same goes for my team-mate Pierre Gasly, so we’ve all been putting our heads together and working things out, with Pierre and I working well together and finding a path forward.
Pirelli have given us the supersoft as our option tyre this weekend, which is certainly a good thing. I’ve always tended to be easy on my tyres so that’s encouraging for me. Tyre degradation is always low at the Red Bull Ring so that’s the right choice by Pirelli, and it’s good that there’s a big difference between the supersoft and the medium, which will be our prime tyre. Having said that, the weather’s not looking the best for the weekend, so I’m hoping that unlike in Monaco – where qualifying was wet – we’ll get to use the supersoft when we’re going for pole.
The other good thing is that they’ve changed the rules for the Saturday races as far as the virtual safety car is concerned. Now you’re not allowed to take your pit stop under the virtual safety car – people pitting under the VSC has certainly cost us some good results this year, so it takes that random variable out of things.
An even better piece of news is that I’ve been lined up to drive a 1990 Williams FW13B – the car Thierry Boutsen won the Hungarian Grand Prix in – at the Goodwood Festival of Speed the weekend after the Red Bull Ring. I love my motorsport history so it’s really exciting for me – it’ll be a great experience and it’s going to be a lot of fun.
But I can’t really think about that for now. The focus is definitely on getting back on track at the Red Bull Ring in GP2. It’s the start of the big mid-season run of races now so it’s important to kickstart my season and score some solid points.
