Sergio Sette Camara: “It’s been a sweet and sour season”

When Sergio Sette Camara moved to the incoming Carlin team for the 2018 season, it’s fair to say that the majority of attention – at the start of the year, at least – was on his new teammate Lando Norris. With many predicting Norris to continue on his impressive trajectory through the junior categories, the 20-year-old Brazilian ace has proven to be more than a match for his F1-bound stablemate, and has at times outperformed Norris throughout the course of the season.

Sette Camara’s first season of F2 was tough; making his debut with the MP Motorsport team, he failed to score a point before the summer break, which proved to be the turning point of his season. Returning to action at Spa-Francorchamps, a sixth-place finish in the Feature Race set him up for a first victory in Sunday’s Sprint Race, which sparked a late-season resurgence to end the year 12th in the standings.

This year, Sette Camara has been a frequent finisher on the podium, and has been consistently quick throughout to sit in sixth place in the Drivers’ Championship. Yet, there’s a tinge of disappointment in Sette Camara’s voice when asked to describe his second F2 season. Erudite and diligent, he felt that pockets of ill-fortune throughout the year have stifled his chances of matching the goals he began the season with.

“At the beginning of the season,” Sette Camara explains, “I had in my mind that I wanted to keep an average of 20 points per round. I could have easily beaten that target in my mind without all of the issues I’ve had. I’d say I’m one of the drivers who’s had the most issues of anyone, so it’s a bit disappointing.

“I said at the start that it was clearly possible to match it, and I would be in a good place in the championship. Right now, I’m quite far off. So yeah, I’m in a quick car in Formula 2 – I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to get to fulfil your dreams, but at the same time I also have my targets and my goals, and this has been the annoying bit of the season!”

2018 has certainly been something of a mixed bag for Sette Camara; a double-podium at the Bahrain opener and pole at the Hungaroring have been tempered with nightmare rounds at Monaco (in which he broke his hand) and Silverstone.

“It’s been a real sweet-sour season,” he concedes. “I’ve had the opportunity to be with a quick team and a top team, but I’ve had a lot of negative things happening as well – my car broke a few times for various different reasons, sometimes reliability issues with nobody to blame, so it’s just been a bit of bad luck. It doesn’t help that I missed a round, so I’ve had two races less than everyone else.”

With two rounds away from bothering the scorers, Sette Camara’s target of averaging 20 points per weekend takes a bit of a hit. But there’s more, he says – although the Carlin driver is aware of other issues which have befallen his closest competitors, he cites Baku and Barcelona as other rounds which fell short of his lofty expectations.

“I’d been disqualified in Baku when I was in second place – that’s 12 points in the bin. If I hadn’t had problems qualifying in Barcelona, I could have easily been in the top three, but instead I was P15 and also broke down in the race – weekend in the bin. Monaco was my fault, and I didn’t race that weekend. At Silverstone, I broke down fighting for a podium in race 1, which could have set me up for the target of 20 points on the grid for race 2, but instead I came away with nothing.”

Let’s push further on his “20 points” mantra, because it’s intriguing to hear a racing driver so open about playing the numbers and looking at the bigger picture – especially in a junior category. Sette Camara believes that it’s the best way to motivate himself across the season, and to react accordingly to the ebb and flow of different rounds.

“If you set those sorts of targets, you can’t let yourself kick the bucket or throw in the towel. I use those kinds of targets to position myself, and it puts you in a better place to make decisions. If you’re above that average of 20 points – which is the average of a champion – why would you then take risks unnecessarily? If you’re behind, then you should risk – it puts you in a better place to decide that. That being said, if you get too attached to your target then it might frustrate you even more, which actually it has done, but I’m trying to avoid that and keep looking forward.

“This year, I think I’ve done three mistakes. One was locking up in Barcelona in qualifying, crashing in Monaco and with Fuoco in Hungary. I don’t think I need to change my approach, I’ve been finishing all the races I can, but maybe if I’m short on my targets then I can be more aggressive. But I’m already at the limit of the risk I can take, and if I take any more and start crashing I’ll look like an idiot.

“So, I think I just have to keep doing the stuff that I’m doing, and with better luck I’d be up there in the championship – so why change it? I just have to be ready for when my luck turns and then put everything together. I can’t allow myself any more mistakes over the rest of the season. There are some big contenders in the championship, plus the top three, with the same targets.”

Although Sette Camara mentions Monaco, we’re a little reluctant to push that subject too far, since injury’s never an easy subject of conversation. He puts us at ease, and is happy to get into the nitty-gritty of what actually happened – and ultimately, how he was able to recover.

He ponders for a moment, pursing his lips. “Monaco was one of the most frustrating things ever. I was surprised how cool I kept, I wasn’t going too crazy, if anything I was calming people down around me!

“I intended to race, I thought I could do it, but the doctors chose not. People freak out about a broken hand, but it’s not like it’s broken completely off – it’s just cracked. It might get worse, of course, and I think that’s the main reason I couldn’t race: not because I couldn’t do it, but rather if I end up having major pains. Then I could lose control and put others in danger. Driving was possible, but probably not safe. It was really frustrating, and I had to miss the race and watch myself fall down the points tables. That’s the point where I started sinking and not matching the targets that I should be.”

Compared to Carlin’s early season, in which Norris and Sette Camara were hugely impressive in Bahrain and Baku, the British team have certainly faced sterner competition – namely from the ART and DAMS squads – on a regular basis. Is there a chance that they’ve fallen back, or has everyone else become stronger over time? The Brazilian believes it’s the latter.

“I’d never say that we’ve got worse. If you look at Bahrain, I qualified sixth and did a great start – it wasn’t even one of my best qualifyings! For me, it was a weekend like the others, so I don’t think there’s been any great drop-off over the year. We weren’t making mistakes at the beginning that others were, but I don’t think in terms of pace or competitiveness we’ve changed – it just went really smoothly at the beginning!”

As we approach the business end of the year, what’s next on the agenda for Sergio Sette Camara? He’s adamant that it’s something he won’t look at until the end of the year, and admits that his current position in the standings might be a tough sell for any potential suitors – especially in an already-congested F1 driver market.

“I’m not thinking about next year yet! There’s so much that’s out of your control, and in the end the teams usually look at the end of the season and look at your results, and to have a voice I should just do my best in this championship. Right now I’m P6, and no F1 teams will be looking at P6, so I have to rebuild my season, get more points and get up there. Once I have that, I can start thinking about it.

“At the end of the day, what are people looking at? They might have a look at racecraft, ask a few people in the team, but mainly they’ll look at the last few rounds you did and then the championship. And that’s why I see the lost rounds in the middle of the championship as effort going into the bin, and it’s difficult to recover from all that. But you have to keep going, and keep doing well because all it takes is a few seconds to change your fortunes.”