Philippe: “We’re always fighting for more performance.”

In a Championship where so much is unpredictable, selecting a driver line-up ahead of a new season is a fine art. When the previous two winners of the category were rookies, do you go for proven experience, or an untested and untried quantity?

Some teams, such as Carlin, DAMS and Campos Racing, opted for the former. Others, such as BWT Arden and Sauber Junior Team by Charouz, elected for the latter. While, ART Grand Prix went for a mixture of the two.

Proven winner Nyck de Vries was partnered with rookie Nikita Mazepin for 2019 and ART boss Sébastien Philippe praised the advantage of having someone with the Dutchman’s consistency and pedigree. It’s a move that has also allowed his young stablemate a greater bedding in period, and at times, has compensated for when their machine has endured a rare off-day.

Speaking ahead of Round 8, the ART boss confessed that it was an easy decision to welcome De Vries back into the team, with the two re-forming a partnership that began in 2016.

“I have known Nyck for a long time,” Philippe began. “He was with us in GP3 a few years ago and I have always been very close to him. There have been no surprises with Nyck because I know his potential, I know his approach and I know his way of working.”

It’s a decision that has been well ratified. De Vries claimed the Championship lead in Le Castellet and has since built up a steady 30-point gap between himself and Nicholas Latifi. His combined total of 196 points has helped to place ART Grand Prix 3rd in the standings.

While, for Mazepin, the step up to F2 was a natural progression, having picked up four wins, seven podiums and a 2nd place finish in GP3 last season with ART. Clearly a talented driver with high potential, the settling-in period has been frustrating for the Russian so far, with just six points collected and a highest finish of 8th.

“It has been quite okay on one side of the garage,” Philippe assessed. “I think with Nyck, we are doing an okay job. It is a good season so far; we just need to have a bit more consistency sometimes, but generally, it is still positive.

“On the other side of the garage, it is a shame, because I think that we have great potential with Nikita, but at the moment we are not really finding the correct key to make it work, but I am still optimistic that in the last four rounds, we will be able to turn it around.

“It has been difficult so far. You have different types of rookies and some adapt very quickly, but this doesn’t mean that they will continue to improve. Then, there are others who struggle a bit more at the beginning because it is a difficult category, with difficult tyres to understand. It is taking a bit more time for Nikita, but he showed us last year that he is very capable of getting good results.

“We need to find a way to make it work better and to better understand what he needs. The relationship is good though and everybody is working together to get the best possible result.”

The ART machine is one of the most domineering of the field when it’s on form, with perhaps the perfect illustration coming in Monaco, when De Vries secured pole position in Qualifying with a fearless 1m 20s spin around the streets of Monte Carlo, before a lights-to-flag victory in the Feature Race.

Despite performances like this, and their lead of the Drivers’ Championship, the Team principal has warned of complacency and labelled reliability and tyre management as two key areas to improve upon ahead of Spa-Francorchamps, when De Vries will continue his title tilt.

“The positive is that we are leading the championship,” continued the Philippe. “After Qualy and after races, there are always things that you think you could have done better and we still need to work hard if we want to keep our position, because there are quite a lot of guys close behind us.

“I think we have good performance, but we can do better. Our reliability could be better, our tyre management too - we have to make sure we stay out of trouble. We’re always fighting for more performance.”

For every Monaco, where they lead the field, there is a Silverstone, where they can’t quite match the pace of their fellow title challengers, DAMS, UNI-Virtuosi and Campos. It’s at this point that maximisation of points becomes vital.

He continued: “I think it is difficult to get it right every time. You just need to have consistency in what you are doing. For sure, we have had some very good weekends and some others not that good, but I think that we have always been in the top four or five in Qualy.

“I am very pleased with the whole team. The mechanics are mainly judged on reliability and pit stops and I think that so far, we are always doing good pit stops. We have had some minor issues with reliability, like everybody, but mainly the car is working well.

“I think that the team, the engineers, everybody is working well. In a competitive environment, you can always do a bit better and it is our job to try and find the small, last details. The atmosphere and the approach of everybody is very good though.”

Fostering that atmosphere will be vital as the season enters crunch time and the targets remain simple: fight for the Championship with De Vries, and find the form that Mazepin “deserves.”