Vesti: Securing every point possible is vital to continue Championship leading trend

29 June 2023

Frederik Vesti enters the second half of the 2023 campaign as the one to beat, but PREMA Racing driver isn’t letting the pressure phase him as he aims to extract the maximum out of a busy month of racing, beginning in Spielberg.

The first driver to lead the Championship for consecutive rounds after his successes in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, Vesti holds a narrow 11-point lead over his nearest rival Théo Pourchaire with a total of 156 points to play for across the back-to-back double headers of Spielberg/Silverstone and Budapest/Spa-Francorchamps.

Yet the Dane isn’t getting complacent, assessing that on a bad weekend he needs to be inside the top five and on his best, the top spot is the only goal. Hopeful that Round 8 will be another positive performance, Vesti says that the foundations have to be built in the 45 minutes of Free Practice running, with his pace on Friday morning potentially shaping the story of his weekend.

“It feels great, but there are a lot of rounds still to go. Our focus is just to continue the trend that we have, which is in a very good direction and to keep pushing. We’re roughly hallway through the Championship now and it’s going to be really important to keep fighting for every single point, starting from Free Practice tomorrow. It’s almost a mini-Championship now until the summer break and I obviously want to do the best possible.”

He added: “We started the season not too bad, obviously no points (in Sakhir) but then it’s just steadily improved. The consistency has been there as well and I think especially in a Championship like this, you need consistency to continue to improve because you need to understand where you need to go and what work you need to put in.

“We have that and we pretty much know the direction that we need to continue pushing towards. It’s just about how well we can do that and if we do that well, I’m very confident that great results are ahead for us. We need to do our job today and tomorrow, starting from the first lap in FP and then building through the weekend. I know the track really well and I know the team is strong, so it’s just about doing the job that we need to do and then executing that in Qualifying.”

His return to the Red Bull Ring is a welcome reunion a place where he’s tasted more than his fair share of success in the past. Achieving his first Formula 3 victory at the Austrian circuit in 2020, Vesti repeated the feat the following year. Last season in Formula 2, he banished his Qualifying frustrations to snatch an impressive maiden pole position and says his fondness for the circuit always puts a spring in his step there.

“It’s an amazing circuit. I think this is by far my most successful track ever, it’s where I’ve done the most pole, race wins and so on. It’s a track I love. When I was a kid, I used to go to Austria a lot for holidays, so just being here, I love it and I would like to spend a lot of time here. When I’m here, I really enjoy it and I think it definitely puts me in a good mindset for the weekend.”

With the Red Bull Ring being shortest circuit on the calendar in terms of lap times, Vesti says the track’s fast, tight and twisty nature leaves very little room for error. Less than two tenths separated the top six in Qualifying and with three DRS zones in play, the PREMA racer says being strategic has to be at the forefront of their minds. Weighing up the pitfalls of track limits alongside where to make moves stick to avoid the favour being repaid a few corners later will be paramount according to the Dane.

“It’s really difficult. I think if not the closest in Qualifying, it’s one of the closest tracks for lap times and one tenth can make up three or four positions,” Vesti explained. “It’s really on the edge and track limits are really difficult to manage. So, you want to get a 10 out of 10 lap and really try to maximise that lap, but you still need to put a little bit of a margin for the track limits. If you get the track limits on your lap, then you’re just last, so it’s really important to balance that. Even in the races, it’s not easy and it’s the driver’s job to risk a lot but still leave a little bit of margin.”

He added: “Maximising the brakes here is so important. Turn 1 and Turn 3 are very uphill, which means you can brake a lot later than you would in a normal corner because the car is stopping. Then, it’s the complete opposite for Turn 4, which is a little bit tricky as well. The last two corners are just really fast corners where you are pretty much balancing on survival and trying not to get track limits, so in your head you’re trying to weigh up how much you want to risk.

“It depends a bit on the race, but actually it’s fairly easy to overtake here. If you have the pace, you can definitely overtake, which is really nice. It opens up the race a bit and allows for drivers who are fast to come through the field and I think this will be exciting for the weekend. It’s a great racetrack with the overtaking possibilities.”