Arthur Pic and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs discuss their race
GP2 Series: Welcome to today’s GP2 press conference following the feature race here in Budapest. Joining us is winner of the race Arthur Pic for Campos Racing and in third place we have Adrian Quaife-Hobbs for Rapax. Stefano Coletti is unfortunately unavailable for quotes. Starting with you Arthur, congratulations. You’re now a GP2 race winner. How does that sound?Arthur Pic: It’s still a bit difficult to realise at the moment, but I’m really happy. The start was not so good for me so I just tried to keep my calm after that and follow the pace of Marciello. When the safety car came in on lap 5, we knew that our strategy was the best one. We decided to pit and after that the goal was to manage the tyres until the end. There were more than 30 laps to go. That’s a lot with the Medium tyres on this track and in these high temperatures. We tried to manage them as well as possible and it went perfectly for us. Even at the end, I still had some tyres left on the last lap. That was very good.
GP2 Series: You were the only one on the two front rows to start on Soft tyres. Why did you choose this strategy?Arthur: We already had this strategy in Hockenheim and I think we missed the podium at the pitstop. But for me, the soft is a bit better at the start. With the two guys in front of me on medium tyres, if I had had a good start, it would have been possible to be P1 or P2 on the first lap. My goal was to do 8 or 10 laps on the softs and pit for the medium and try to have some clean air. It went well. I don’t know if without the first safety car period if the win would have been possible today, but I think the car was competitive and everything went in the right direction for us today.
GP2 Series: Was your team keeping you informed over the radio that you were actually racing for the win?Arthur: It was a bit frustrating for me because on every lap they told me that I didn’t need to push and to stay in 1m34s or 1m35s. I wanted to go faster than that. They told me to be patient. In the end, they were right. I want to thank Campos because it’s our first win this year. That’s fabulous.
GP2 Series: Were you worried on the re-start after the safety car period with Coletti behind you as he has more experience than you?Arthur: I was a bit worried indeed because I saw during Monaco race that Coletti can be quite strong at the re-start. I thought about that in the car today and I knew I needed to build a good gap. I had an idea of what to do and it worked quite well: I decided to push after turn 12 and I think he was a bit surprised to see me push this early. I had a 1 second gap before the line and that was perfect.
GP2 Series: Tomorrow, you’ll be starting from P8. Tyre degradation seemed to be no problem for you. What are your expectations for the sprint race?Arthur: Let’s see what the weather will be. I hear we may have some rain tomorrow. It can be good for us if that is the case. We start from P8 and we have nothing to lose. We’re not fighting for the title. I will be happy to race in the rain. That will be the second one this season. If it’s dry, we will have to simply manage the tyres to be fast in the first ten laps.
GP2 Series: Well good job today and best of luck for tomorrow.Arthur: Thank you.
GP2 Series: Adrian, from P22 to P3. How did you do that?Adrian Quaife-Hobbs: Well obviously strategy played a huge role. At the start of the race, I was on my normal strategy where we decided to start on the option tyres. We always try to gain positions at the start because obviously qualifying has not been great for us this year. We always try to push for a few laps, pit, put the prime on and then push as hard as we can to try and get track positions. That was our goal toady, but with so many people starting on the primes today, my engineer told me on the radio with four laps in to try and slow down to save the options and try to extend them. We were trying to do what Mitch did in Hockenheim and to pit on lap 12 or 15, but then on lap 6, I was coming around the second to last corner and he said there might be a safety car. So I decided to go straight into the pitlane. The team I think were scrambling to get the tyres ready and as soon as I came out of the pits, the safety car came out. We knew then that it was a good strategy. Obviously, it also meant that I had to try and make the tyres last. I was trying to push Stefano hard. We had a good fair fight. I think we probably fought a bit too long. After that we sort of settled down and I was gonna try to attack at the end, but we did not have too much tyres left. So we both were happy to see the safety car at the end of the race probably…
GP2 Series: When did you realise you were actually fighting for a podium?Adrian: When I saw the safety car to be honest. I asked my engineer. He was letting me know we were trying to go for P8 at that point. Every lap, it was moving up. I don’t think anyone really knew what was happening! Then, I came out behind the safety car and I said there were three cars ahead of me and he said “ah yes, don’t worry we’re in fourth now, keep pushing!” I thought that was a mistake with the safety car…!
GP2 Series: What does this result mean for you and your team after a challenging first part of the season?Adrian: The problem is we keep starting around the 20th place. For some reasons, we don’t seem to be get qualifying right at the moment. It’s not from lack of trying. We’re trying very hard. This weekend we were 8th in practice and then it fell apart in qualifying. But in the race, the pace has always been good. We start always around 20th and we fight in the end for the top ten. We can always get out there. This was the first time we got a bit of luck on our side. We showed our pace is good even when we’re at the front. We just need to sort out qualifying. That’s our issue. Normally, the race pace is the hardest part to find with the Pirelli tyre. I think we just need to try to look back at practice and try to work out what we did to get 8th and try to build on that.
GP2 Series: And there’s probably more to come tomorrow. You’ll be starting from sixth…Adrian: Well for me sixth is the highest I’ve started all year! It should be a great race. Normally we gain 3 or 4 positions off the start line on the first lap. We may be not do the same tomorrow from sixth, but I’m hoping to get a good start and move forward. If the race pace is the same as today, I’m sure we can challenge people at the front.
