Viscaal believes 'it’s just a matter of time' before he’s scoring points

Enduring several near misses since his Formula 2 debut in Sakhir, Bent Viscaal says “it’s just a matter of time,” until he has some points next to his name.

A pair of P11s in his last two races have gotten Viscaal ever-closer to the points, with the Trident driver just one spot off a scoring position in the Monte Carlo Feature Race.

Of the six races he has started so far, the Dutchman has only finished lower than he started once, and highlighted Qualifying as a key area of improvement.

“We have been so close two or three times now, so it’s getting annoying to still not have any points,” said Viscaal. “I am sure that it will come if we can improve our Qualifying, which was the problem. Especially in Monaco, we didn’t qualify well enough.

“The pace that we had on track compared to other cars, once we had a bit of clean air, was actually really good. It was the same in Bahrain, although we had some issues that prevented us from scoring points. It’s just a matter of time before we get the first few points.

“This is still a new car for me of course, but we’re getting there. We’re getting used to the tyres and improving race by race.”

Boosted by a full-time contract ahead of the second round in Monaco, Viscaal feels he has benefitted from a less stressful time away from the track, giving him more opportunities to develop both himself and the car.

The additional time between rounds is a luxury he says he wouldn’t have had, if he’d debuted in 2020.

“Once I put the helmet on, I didn’t think about (my contract), but there’s a lot less stress off the track than there was before,” he continued. “I am very happy that the deal has been done and that I am signed for the rest of the season.

“I prefer to have my rookie season this year in 2021 than I would have done in 2020, because there would not have been as much time to analyse between the races, whereas we have that now.”