Laurens van Hoepen on his debut with TRIDENT and the key takeaways from Baku

Laurens van Hoepen does not feel the results from his debut weekend in Baku show how well things went, as he talked through what he learned the most from Round 12.

The Dutch driver made the step up from Formula 3 at the last round with TRIDENT, and qualified in 20th, before finishing both the Sprint and Feature Races in P17.

Van Hoepen though was not too downbeat by the results, instead he was delighted with the pace and grateful for the opportunity to learn as much as possible.

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“Of course when you look at the results it did not go too well,” he said. “But behind the scenes it was actually really good.

“It was a shame in quali we did not get to do a lap because of the Red Flags, but every time in quali I was on a good lap, so there was a lot of potential, we were really quick.

“I think we could have definitely had a good result in quali, it's just a shame and also in the races, we gambled with a couple of things to try and make it to the front, which didn't turn out the way we wanted it too.

“But the underlying thing is we were really quick. There are still some big things different than in F3, but I really understood things at the end of the weekend. I am really happy that I have done Baku because you learn so much, which is of course very cool.”

When asked for his main takeaways from the weekend, van Hoepen said: “There are a couple of things you feel on the car instantly, but the brakes of course are a big thing.

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“In F3, your brakes work all the time. In F2, if your brakes are cool, they don't work at all, which was something new. But also the track, it was a very particular track, very cool, a street track but also still quite quick, but it was a very cool experience.”

The 20-year-old’s preparations for the weekend begun straight after F3’s final round in Monza, with he and fellow debutant Martinius Stenshorne getting straight down to work at TRIDENT’s factory in Italy.

Driving alongside a fellow rookie for van Hoepen meant he did not have an experienced driver to lean on, but the positive is that it was someone who he had known for nearly a decade.

“Straight after Monza we went to prep in the sim, I had some meetings with everyone and then tried to understand as much as possible how the car works,” he revealed. “So I felt prepped and ready for it.

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“I think I have known him since 2016. But on the one hand you miss an experienced teammate, because they would have done a full season, but now we both had to go through it together at the same time.

“But on the other hand we know each other well, so we can think about what we feel and we went through it together, which is nice.”