Delétraz’s Guest Column: We’re getting more intelligent every round

He may not have a podium to show for his efforts, but Louis Delétraz enjoyed one of his most competitive weekends of the season so far, taking fifth and fourth places finishes, to move him up to fifth in the title fight. The Charouz Racing System driver takes control of this week’s guest column to pen his thoughts on a successful weekend.

He discusses the lessons learned from Round 5, explains why he enjoyed the races so much, and looks at why the fans were missed so much at Silverstone.

ONE GOOD THING – OVERTAKES, OVERTAKES, AND MORE OVERTAKES

The best thing about the weekend was my pace in the races and the overtakes I made. Those two go together and I am very happy about the two races, the strategies that we chose and the overtakes that I made.

Hopefully it was as good a show for fans watching the races on TV as it was from the car!

ONE BAD THING – QUALIFYING FRUSTRATIONS

We qualified ninth and that is not good enough to be honest. I think in the previous events we maybe didn’t have the car to do much more than this in Quali, but this weekend we had improved.

The team had worked really hard and it paid off because the car was good this weekend. It’s a shame that we couldn’t really put it together on the run 2 of Quali and had to start from ninth, because we deserved to be higher up than we were.

ONE THING LEARNED – TYRE MANAGEMENT

We learned quite a lot this weekend, certainly about the tyres. Every round you learn more. I won’t go into specifics here because I want to keep what we learned for ourselves and not share it all! I will use it to my advantage in the next round. Definitely though, in terms of tyre management and tyre usage, I think we're getting more intelligent every round.

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED – OUR VERY OWN PITLANE

Firstly, I think the impact that the fans not being there has on us as drivers. I think in general, the fans at Silverstone are very important, and I felt a big difference this weekend without them here. Last year the drivers’ parade was full and it was really good to see everyone there, pushing us for great racing.

At Silverstone, we work from the old pitlane, so we actually have our own garages. That actually allows the fans to be closer to us. Every year, you see a lot of people in our paddock, wanting pictures and everything, and it is really nice to feel their support! Hopefully, next year they are back in Silverstone!

Oh, and of course, my overtakes on track!

NEXT TIME OUT - BARCELONA

I really can’t wait for Barcelona. The races are going very quickly now, and it is getting tiring for all of the crews and the drivers as well, but luckily, we have some days to rest between.

Barcelona is a track that I like, and a track where tyre degradation will be high. We are already preparing to go to Barcelona and have been since Sunday. We want to be as competitive as before, and we are working hard on being more competitive in Quali. We want to be qualifying better, so you can expect to see us at the very front in the races!

See you soon, Louis