A race in my words: Ralph Boschung

23 August 2022

There are those moments in every driver’s career where all the pieces just seem to click together and for Ralph Boschung it wasn’t just one race, but an entire Formula 2 round.

Taking a trip down memory lane, the Campos Racing driver recalls his visit to the streets of Monte Carlo last year, where he saw off wet weather and the Principality’s twisty turns to score fourth, fifth and sixth-place finishes – his best results in the Championship up to that point.

“It was kind of my first best race weekend ever in F2 and I went from not really scoring any points to scoring as many points as I did combined during my first two years in F2 before that. So, it was a bit of a shock, but it was a good memory because I really like the track. Since then, I feel like our rhythm kept going up through the whole year.

“It was also very tricky. We had one of the three races in the rain in Monaco (Sprint Race 2). Obviously, it was very difficult, and we struggled a lot with the tyres but managed to keep the drivers behind. I think that race was the start of a lot of points over the following couple of months after that. That race was very, very special because I pushed a lot in the beginning and my wet tyres were basically slick tyres, I had no more profile left on them and I still managed not to hit the wall in Monaco.

“I had a train of cars behind me, and I think I proved to myself and showed the team that under a lot of pressure I was still able to hold the car and not bin it – that's the moment that stands out the most in that race weekend.

“Monaco’s atmosphere is already very special, but before you start race weekend you know you're in Monaco, you see it on TV and then you're there and it's like wow! On top of that, it's kind of my home race because I live there, so that makes it even more special.

“It’s a race weekend where you need to be very focused and have a percentage more focus and attention for it than other races because if you make a mistake there, you will pay the price for it big time.

“The race and the weekend gave me a lot of confidence and for the team as well. I think it didn’t change me as a driver, but it changed a few of my approaches for the other race weekend. I learnt quite a lot as well, so all in all it was a very positive thing for myself and the team.

“One thing I learnt is that I’m able to not crack under pressure and the way you have to do it is just to stay very calm. Usually, that’s something that is very difficult for any driver – to stay calm in the car when you have a lot of pressure from behind or have an issue, that was a very big learning curve from that side. Then from the car, we also made a lot of big changes for Monaco especially and I think the engineers and I learnt a lot from that package for the other street circuits that we had like Baku, where we confirmed the pace, we had and found a good package for the street tracks.

“Obviously I always try to learn more, and you usually learn more from mistakes anyway, that’s for sure. I look at what I don’t do well in more detail and try to do it better for the next race weekend. I think that’s very important, it’s the only way to really improve. I’m more focused on these things before a race weekend than just looking at the positives.

“There are always things that you can do better, but I feel like I checked a lot of boxes that weekend, especially looking from where I came from and that’s always something I do in general. Whether it’s in racing or in normal life, everybody has their struggles, and you have to look at it from a different perspective and look at where you’ve actually come from, so those steps are already quite big.”