Verschoor hopeful of finding more pace after promising start in Yas Marina

24 November 2023

Things looked good for Van Amersfoort Racing after Free Practice around the Yas Marina Circuit. Both Juan Manuel Correa and Richard Verschoor finished the session inside the top 10.

For the latter, fifth in the session was actually a disappointment after stepping out of the car and having the chance to reflect on things in Abu Dhabi.

Verschoor says that there is plenty of potential in the car that the team is yet to unlock, but the baseline they have arrived with is hugely promising going into Qualifying.

“It was nice to jump in a car again after my experience in Macau. I think I got used to things again very quickly. There were some things which held me back from going even faster and I really liked the car this morning. I really hope we can keep it up for Qualifying but I do think there's a lot more potential than what we showed in Free Practice.”

Starting the weekend so strongly gives VAR confidence that they can tweak their setup to find the last tenths of a second going into the all-important Qualifying session.

Verschoor too will be looking to fine tune his driving ahead of the session, but is pleased with how the team has hit the ground running this weekend with expected improvements in the offing.

“It’s where the whole weekend starts. If the car feels good from the beginning, you can build a better car when you're already in the window, so I'm glad that’s where we are.

“Now we're just looking into everything to see where I can improve myself but also the team with the car a little bit.

“I definitely built into the session. During the first two laps, we weren’t pushing 100% so there was some time left on the table. Even on the second lap at some traffic because we're at the back of the pitlane, it was quite a mess. But we’re definitely building in the right direction.”

Of course, all of the drivers will be swapping their medium compound Pirelli tyres in for some red-walled softs for the Qualifying session. While Verschoor says the team has made a great start, predicting where they’ll land later this afternoon is tricky, with everyone expecting to make gains on the softer compound tyre.

“It's not super relevant because now we’ll go to the softs and there’s gonna be more grip. With the softs, It's going to be different, but at least we have a good baseline with which we can work from.

“I have no expectations going into Qualifying. I just want to do a very good lap and then we’ll see where we are in the end.”