Interview
Day three pace-setter Martins glad to end productive Yas Marina test with fastest time
Victor Martins was very happy with how the three days of post-season testing went for him and ART Grand Prix after he set the fastest time of the final day of running in Abu Dhabi.
The Frenchman was a fixture at the top of the leaderboard early in the morning when the majority of the teams put the Supersoft tyres on their cars for some Qualifying simulation laps.
Martins’ first two attempts put him at the top ahead of Josep María Martí before his third and final lap on the softer compound, a 1:35.773, lifted him back into first, 0.038s ahead of Alexander Dunne.
READ MORE: Martins ends day three of Yas Marina post-season testing on top
No one would go on to match that time for the rest of the day and, reflecting on the test afterwards, Martins was happy with how things went.
“I think it was a good three days of testing for sure,” he started. “We used this test to trial a lot of the things we don't have the chance to test during the year. We only had three days in Bahrain at the start of the season, then three days in Barcelona, so it's another track to assess things.
“For sure it’s good to see what we did well during the weekend and what we did wrong and what we could have done better on all the tracks also. So, it’s always good to be at the top of the field, but in the end it's only testing.
“Even if everyone tried to get the same run plan and then compare it to each other, you don't know what fuel the others have in the car, or what we put in the car ourselves.
“So, we know where we are, we know what we did, but in the end the positive thing is that we are happy about the test we did.”
Explaining further about the different things he and ART tested during the season, Martins added: “It’s a bit of everything. You try to cover every area that you go through in a weekend.
“So, it's just trying things, warmups, trying to get a feel of the tyres to see if we can find a better way to put them in the window, race pace, to see how the car is behaving and also quali laps.
“We had the three Supersoft sets to try this, and I think we were quite happy about where we are and what we found.”
Martins went on to explain how a test can be beneficial not just for the team but also for the driver and using the time to try different things within the car is key part of the three days of running.
“In the end three days goes fast, so you don't have so much time to do everything you want,” he continued. “You test the setup of the car for the team, but let's say you also try to take these days to test yourself.
“In the end, it's also good for you to get confidence, to get more laps in with no pressure, with no expectation. You try different driving styles, and you see where it goes.
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“If you find better for yourself in the car or if it's worse, and then you see it, and then you analyse it with the team, so you have more time to do things like this. It's a different approach, it's not what I like, I prefer to race and to go for it.
“On a race weekend, you have the pressure, you have these kinds of things, and you have the reward and a real target in the end. Here feels like you drive to drive, and that's it, but it is still enjoyable.”
Martins came into the test off the back of a strong season finale at the same Yas Marina Circuit where he took Pole Position and fought for a podium in the Feature Race until Richard Verschoor overtook him for third on the last lap.
As a result, Martins admits that in terms of their car performance in Abu Dhabi, there was not a lot more they could gain but the data collected could prove invaluable.
“I think if I'm honest, we were on pole, so there was not much that could be improved, even if you can always improve the package, and you can always do better as a driver,” he said.
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“But let's say it's not the best weekend to have three days of testing, because in the end we can maybe fine tune things, but we cannot make a half a second step and be faster than the other guys by that gap.
“But we are still happy about what we did, what we saw on the data and in the end, all that matters is the productivity of the three days and that has been good.”