Artem Markelov: “I’ll always try to perform"

Emblazoned on the rollhoop of Artem Markelov’s car is the phrase “never give up”. It’s the mantra that the Russian driver lives by, exemplified by his trademark charging drives through the field. His dogged pursuit of Oliver Rowland at the end of 2017 culminated in Markelov snatching second in the championship from the Brit at the final round and, such is his determination, he’s put his reputation on the line to return for another season of Formula 2.

Why? It’s simple. He’s looking to go one better this season.

His 2018 so far hasn’t exactly been smooth, and it’s fair to say that Markelov hasn’t quite gelled with the new F2 2018 car. As a result, the Moscow-born driver elected to take a new chassis for the round in Monaco having been disappointed with his results thus far – his qualifying results becoming a particular source of consternation.

“Last year I had better qualifying than this year,” Markelov admits, “and this year I’ve come back with this problem. Back in the GP2 days, I was having a bit of an issue with qualifying and that’s kind of come back now, which is a really big trouble for me. But I’m really trying to improve this with each race.”

“It went really well in Bahrain, at least, in the race – the qualifying wasn’t so good and in Baku, the whole weekend was pretty bad. In Barcelona, we aimed to improve the qualifying and hopefully I’d be able to stay in front of everyone – that’ll be a bit of an easier race. I just need to improve the qualifying, really.”

Markelov admitted that he still needs time to get used to the car, the previous model having been more to his liking, but is adamant that seat time will be key to getting his challenge for the F2 title on track.

“On the shakedown, I had a bit of a problem adapting to the turbo, because I didn’t quite understand how to work with it; when you’re coming out of the slow corners you have to manage the throttle early to get a better exit. But by the time we’d got to the first race, and also during the second one, the car was no issue in that area.”

“I’m still in the early stages with the car, but I’m trying to get confident and work with it. It’s really hard with just the 45 minutes of free practice, actually, if we had three sessions like in F1 that would be great! It’s just time in the car for me to be fully confident.”

With the new chassis in Monaco, it all seemed to click for Markelov. Hurling his new car around the streets of Monte Carlo with consummate ease, he finished second in his group – placing third on the grid – which set him up perfectly to secure victory in the Feature Race after Alexander Albon and Nyck de Vries tangled ahead of him.

Markelov’s reputation in the paddock is two-fold; he’s known as a tough, uncompromising racer who’s not afraid to make passes in places many feel impossible, and the example of his fantastic pass on Arjun Maini in the Rascasse in the previous round is testament to that. Yet, he’s able to blend that with some of the best tyre management skills in the business, as showcased in the Bahrain opener where he converted a stall on the grid to a podium finish. So what’s his secret?

“Ah, once some people asked me this question, and I told them ‘it’s like my baby!’ With the tyres, it’s like you’re trying to be careful with the baby, and it was really like this for myself. But it’s true, and on the exit of the corners I always have to take care and with the throttle management in the middle of the corners.

“I take different lines in the race and, when you follow the car in the front, you actually have more degradation. So you have to try and be different, take different lines on the corner entry to be quicker on entry and then care more on the exit.”

Since joining the series as a relative unknown, Markelov’s stock has risen, and he’s raced alongside some of the most promising junior prospects during his stay at RUSSIAN TIME; Mitch Evans, Raffaele Marciello and Luca Ghiotto have all been Markelov’s partners-in-crime at the team. All of them, he says, provided him with the opportunity to learn and adapt new elements into his driving.

“I was learning something from the drivers I raced against at RUSSIAN TIME, but I’d have to say the best teammate I’d had was Luca (Ghiotto). Mitch (Evans) was a pretty nice guy as well, but with Luca, when we had a really good car and I was quick as well, we fought hard as teammates which was pretty nice, and he was a really gentle teammate as well. We definitely learned some things from each other.”

With series newcomer Tadasuke Makino joining the team for 2018, Markelov discussed the open-book policy between the two drivers, suggesting that there are things that he could learn from his rookie teammate too.

“Tadasuke and I share our data, so if I’m doing some mistakes I learn from him and if he does some mistakes, he learns from my data; we have open information in the team. We get on well, too, so hopefully we can just keep doing a little better this season. I can learn from him in qualifying, and he can learn from me in the race.”

With a Renault Sport Formula One development driver contract in his back pocket, Markelov returned for 2018 with a new set of black and yellow overalls to mark his new role with the team. With a Formula 1 team’s fountain of knowledge on tap, what’s he been up to with Renault so far? He gave us a little bit of insight about his duties in the Enstone facilities.

“I get all the different information from the tests, and working with the drivers and engineers, I get to analyse everything. When I was at the first race in Bahrain, it was nice to take all the information from the race that they’ve just done and analyse, and see if there are any problems during the race.

“I’ve also done some simulator work, where we’re trying lots of different things, setups and other interesting things – and it’s really amazing to work in this kind of environment. When I first started with the simulator, they told me ‘we’ll try some different set-ups on the car, and you’ll tell us what’s happened with the car’, so they were testing and checking me.

“But then on the next day, I was working with the car, we were trying some different setups and it was really nice, there was some nice feedback for me and from the engineers. Hopefully, they’ll try something out at the races that we were working on.”

So, after four-and-a-bit years at this level, what’s next on the agenda for Artem Markelov?

“Hopefully, having a place at Renault would be the ideal next step! For the moment, we don’t know what will be the next step, and maybe some seats in Formula 1 will be available. Renault haven’t told me that I have a certain target, but of course, I’ll always try to perform! For me, it’s just about learning a lot and to show who I am on the simulator; trying to develop the set-up with the car and do my job.”

For now, the focus firmly remains on this season. With a 27-point gap behind championship leader Lando Norris to overcome, Markelov will be hoping that his excellent Monaco weekend will be the stimulus for a successful championship challenge. He’s very aware of his competition, however, having expected Norris to factor heavily in the fight for honours early on.

“We always expected to be fighting with Lando. He is quite talented, he’s coming into work and he understands snaps fingers like that, like in school you come into the classroom and some people are doing it like this clicks fingers again and others need to work and learn a lot.

“He’s pushing hard, and he’s quite good at qualifying and starting from P1 but when he’s in the fight I’ve not seen him there much. Maybe we’ll fight with him more! I’m also expecting Russell, Jack Aitken, Alexander Albon and Nyck de Vries also to be in the fight too, so it will be hard for me.”

With two-thirds of the season to go, and a pair of wins already in Markelov’s account, there’s the potential for the championship battle to go down to the wire, as long as he can match Norris’ current consistency.

We can but hope.