Alex's BlogEarly morning flights might not be everyone’s cup of tea – or can of Red Bull for that matter – but I can’t wait for Thursday when I’ll be heading to Barcelona for my first GP3 race. And what a weekend of firsts it will be. I’ve never done a GP3 race before, I’ve never driven for my team Carlin and while I’ve done a lot of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, I’ve never raced there. And then there’s the colour of my car: it will be decked out in Red Bull colours and that’s going to be pretty special as I start my first season as a Red Bull Junior Team driver.
The immediate goal for the weekend is obviously to come away with some good points from the two races and my overall goal for the weekend is to be top three in the championship and to be there or close enough in terms of pace. I’m quite confident we’ll be fast but you can never be sure everything will go to plan because that doesn’t happen. We just need to make sure we get good points in both races: that’s the important thing because it gives you a good springboard for the rest of season.
Most of the preparation has been done. I’m on the simulator this week and was at the team’s workshop last week. We’ve been working flat out for a number of months to be honest, making sure we are on top of everything. The aim has been to get to the position where I can just turn up and get the maximum from myself and the car. I’m making sure we’re focused on putting all those pieces of the puzzle together so a good race weekend should blossom from all of that.
Barcelona is a very technical circuit so you need to have a good car to be fast there otherwise you’ve no chance. That means a good set-up although that’s a bit of a compromise because aerodynamics are critical and it's a track that’s hard on tyre wear. But because we had a good pre-season test there we’ll be quite strong straight away and fingers crossed we will go well there.
Our test at Barcelona was in mid-April so there’s obviously going to be an increase in temperatures going into May from what we had in the test and it will certainly make a difference in terms of tyre wear. But our practice is early on Friday evening and we’ll be qualifying pretty early on the Saturday morning. The races are also late afternoon Saturday and early morning Sunday so the temperatures are never going to be a big problem
Qualifying is going to be important but it’s absolutely everything in every category of racing. It’s important to be up the front, particularly on pole and that’s obviously something I’ll be looking to achieve. Even though I’ve never raced there I know the track well and I can’t wait to start my first season in GP3 and the next step on the ladder to Formula One. It’s going to be amazing to be part of a Formula One weekend, racing in the spotlight of the world’s media and in front of all the Red Bull team bosses. That’s the opportunity I’ve always wanted: and I’m going to grab it with both hands…
