Interview
FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to the Press Conference of the top three finishers for the FIA Formula 2 Championship Sprint Race in Spielberg. In third place we have Paul Aron from Hitech Pulse-Eight, in second we have Josep Marí Martí from Campos Racing and taking his first win of the season is Oliver Bearman from PREMA racing. Ollie finally a win this year, finally a podium for PREMA, how good does it feel to finally get onto the podium and the top step today?
Oliver Bearman: Yeah, mixed feelings of course it’s just a Sprint Race but it’s nice to get a result that makes the team happy. We’ve been working really hard this year, we have been struggling of course a little bit. It’s nice to bring back a result that shows the hard work is going somewhere. I have a feeling that we still need to do a little step further. But we are getting towards where we want to be, and I am quite happy to bring a podium back to the team.
FIA Formula 2: It looked like the closest thing to a perfect start that you could have, taking the lead and getting almost two seconds clear on the first lap, how crucial was that to open the gap?
Bearman: In Lap 1, it was pretty straight forward for me. I saw that it went down in the background, it was quite close into Turn 3 for me. I had to kind of back out and take a wide line because I thought I was going to get collected. But in the end Lap 1 was pretty clean, I saw that they were fighting pretty hard behind, I just wanted to open a DRS gap and bring the tyres in nicely. I think that was the key to victory today.
FIA Formula 2: Overall, is this a sign of improved pace for the team and yourself? Did you learn a lot from the weekend in Spain?
Bearman: Yes, we learnt a lot. I think our philosophy is kind of changing, we are starting to understand better what the car wants. Especially in a race situation which seems to be our weak point so far. Of course, it’s not a perfect representation of our pace because I spent the whole race in front. Which of course makes your life a lot easier with tyres. I have a good idea of what I need from the car tomorrow, starting from the midfield and I think this is a sign that we are going in a good direction.
FIA Formula 2: Great stuff. Pepe P2 for you, your first podium since the opening round, it must feel good to be back.
Josep Marí Martí: Definitely it has been quite a difficult first-to-middle of the Championship for me so far. I feel like the pace has always been there. I feel like we should have been in the Top 10 every weekend but obviously things came and went and we didn’t score points for a long time. In Barcelona we made a step forward and then this weekend we performed a bit better. Today we got a well-deserved podium for the team.
FIA Formula 2: I mentioned the gap that Ollie pulled at the start, but you closed that pretty quickly. Did you expect that you had the pace to be able to get past or where you primed to it being tough to overtake?
Marti: Not at all, it was a really different situation. At the start I had contact so my front wing was damaged so I am not sure how much performance I lost due to that. It definitely felt different from one side to another cornering. I remember at Lap 3, DRS opening, and Kush Maini was really close behind. He was full push for five to 10 laps. I decided the best thing to do to try and protect myself was to catch Ollie. So I had to use up my tyres a bit more than I would have liked. But I think that maybe also cost us the chance to have a victory today.
FIA Formula 2: Points and the Fastest Lap in the Feature Race last weekend, it’s signs of progress there. What do you think you can achieve in tomorrow's race?
Marti: We have to be optimistic. I think we can go forward; I think the pace is pretty strong. Then again Sunday is a different race, you have a pitstop too. I think after today, seeing how the race went down the mentality of people is going to chance a lot and tomorrow will be a completely different race. We will see how it goes, I am hoping for a good start and hopefully no more damage in lap one. Then I will try to get away with some more points this weekend.
FIA Formula 2: Congratulations today. Paul, keeping your run of at least one podium finish at every race weekend, but it looked like you had to work hard for that one especially in the second half of the race?
Paul Aron: It’s a great result, its great to be back on the podium as you mentioned in Barcelona we did get the podium although we didn’t stand on it. It was quite a tricky race in the end, I was starting from sixth and then made my way up. I had to make a few moves and play the race in the long term. I think in Barcelona I was a bit too greedy in the Feature Race, I tried to make good my mistakes here, so I played the long game. Whenever I had the chance, I tried to make the move and save my tyres for the rest of the race. Towards the end it was not easy because Gabriel Bortoleto had the DRS behind me, and I couldn’t catch up to the guys in front to get it. I had to play it smart. He was really strong in all the corners where the exits are important. Turn 1 and Turn 3, so it made my life difficult. I just played the game, saved my tyres as much as I could in the middle sector and then pulled the gap in the third sector and try to keep him behind.
FIA Formula 2: How tough was it to keep him behind, like you say he was strong in all the places you want to be strong. Was there any other games you had to play, or techniques you had to use to make sure you kept him at bay?
Aron: The main games were tyres and that started on lap two basically. I started saving my tyres and trying to do my best at playing the long game. When he was behind me and I didn’t have DRS I tried to save my tyres in the middle sector where he could not overtake me. Then push flat out basically in the first and third sector because that was the place where he could have made the moves. I think the pace would have been better than it looked at the end of the race if I didn’t have to do that. But when I saw that there was no chance to catch these guys for P1 and P2 then I just went into ‘saving the podium’ mode and just keeping him behind me.
FIA Formula 2: You’re the Championship leader, when do you start thinking about the wider picture of the title race and the way you approach the race weekend because your consistency has really been paying off.
Aron: I think both myself and the team are thinking about it, you can see that in the way we approach the races. I think the strategy we have for example in Barcelona was not to win the race it was just to play the safest game in order to get the most points. I think both of us are thinking about how to take the least amount of risk and score the most amount of points. I think that could be a reason why I still don’t have a race win because we are not going all out at every race we are just trying to get the maximum out of every race. Sometimes when there is a chance to go for the win you miss out but at the same time you avoid the mistakes when there is not a chance to get the win. I would love to get my first win soon, but I think forcing it is a mistake. This race was very positive for us. We extended the Championship lead and scored good points again.
FIA Formula 2: Well done to everyone today, thank you to all three.