“Championship approach won’t change," says De Vries

In the ultra-competitive and constantly challenging world of Formula 2, no car can ever be on top for an entire season, no team can sustain that kind of domination through 12 gruelling rounds and 24 races. It’s the reason why the Championship is so entertaining, because it’s so open.

That’s why a driver’s ability becomes so important in F2 and it’s why Nyck de Vries would have been so coveted come the end of 2018. The Dutchman is the model of consistency, and the type of racer to eek every last drop of performance out of his car. His ART Grand Prix machine may not always have been top of the pile in terms of performance this season, but he’s still been able to break a Formula 2 record, with at least one podium in every round since Bahrain, the season opener. ­

With the summer break looming, the Championship leader admitted that the key area of improvement for the team is their “race pace”. But, providing he can keep scoring top three finishes on the weekends where it isn’t quite up to scratch, and wins when it is on song, he remains in the driving seat for the title fight.

The Dutchman was on pole for Budapest Feature Race but ended up frustrated at the start when he lost the position to title contender Nicholas Latifi at Turn 1 and he admits to making a mistake. He went on to score P2 and claim an eighth podium place of the campaign. Once again, a pretty remarkable feat considering he has since revealed that his No.4 machine had suffered a slow puncture on the Prime tyre stint.

“The start was just good enough to stay ahead of Luca Ghiotto and Nicholas,” he explained. “However, Luca was trying to attack me in Turn 1, so I kind of had to defend and as I was defending, I kind of missed my breaking point a little bit. Therefore, Nicholas was able to prepare his corner better than us and do a kind of undercut on us and that is why he got me.

“It is a difficult track to overtake on, however, when you start to get a bigger difference on tyre life and tyre wear, that is normally when the race starts to become more exciting. It is certainly quite a tough circuit to overtake and that’s why I was also quite disappointed after Race 1, because I felt that perhaps we would have been able to stay ahead of Nicholas if I hadn’t messed up turn 1.

“However, we did have a slow puncture on the Prime stint, so we were actually lucky that we finished the race and managed to bring it home.”

De Vries mastered the rain in Qualifying to secure a dynamic pole position in difficult conditions, producing the perfect lap of the wet Hungaroring. It was his third pole of the F2 campaign and ensured he maintained an edge over title rivals Latifi and Ghiotto who were sitting directly behind him in both the race and the Championship.

“We did it together as a team. I was quite proud of our qualifying I have to admit,” he continued. “We had a competitive Free Practice session in the dry and then ideally you just want to go into qualifying in similar circumstances, but it wasn’t meant to be, which made it a bit more challenging I would say.

“The weather is always unknown and no one was really prepared. The team and I just had to kind of guess what to do really, but we all did a good job and I was happy and proud that we managed to grab pole in such difficult circumstances.”

The extra points gained from pole, alongside his 6th place finish ahead of Latifi in the Sprint Race, allowed him to stretch his lead at the top of the table, ahead of the summer break. For De Vries, this changes nothing in his approach to the remainder of the season. And after all, if it isn’t broke, why fix it?

“Being in the lead doesn’t necessarily make me more or less confident,” asserted De Vries. “As I have been saying the whole season, we want to win races and we are here to win and that approach has been the same from Bahrain Round 1, up until now.

“That will certainly not change in the remaining part of the season. To be honest, it doesn’t really change my feelings towards the Championship and weekends.”

The Dutchman has plenty to smile about during the summer break, although he admits that he hasn’t been thinking about the upcoming time off.

He said: “Honestly, I have been so busy up until this point that I haven’t really allowed myself to think about the break too much and I didn’t really want to plan things ahead. I have just been waiting until this moment really. But, I am still working, I have been in the simulator today and I am in the simulator again tomorrow.

“I have to admit that I am now kind of figuring out what I want to do and what I am going to do, because I realise that time flies by and before I know it, we are back in Spa. I might go away for a couple of days with a friend.”

With the first part of the season over and a 30-point lead at the top of the Championship secured, De Vries will be aiming for a similar result come the season’s end.