After a strong start in Spain, Dino found the going rather more difficult in Austria - in more ways than one
Friday 27 June 2014 14:00, UK
The Austrian race was back on the F1 calendar after an absence of 11 years. I can vividly remember watching Michael Schumacher racing through the picturesque forest circuit when I was a young boy. So I was quite excited to be racing there myself 11 years on.
It was the first visit to the circuit for all GP3 teams, having naturally not raced there last year, and for a handful of drivers including myself. A lot of drivers had raced there before in other forms of race car, but I unfortunately didn’t have this advantage. Nevertheless, as usual, Friday’s 45 minute GP3 practice session would be a good time to put all the pieces together and understand as quickly as possible.
The flight out to Austria was fairly smooth, except for one small complaint. It’s just a small complaint, but for some reason, the last 3 or 4 times that I’ve gone to take my place on the plane, I’ve had a crying baby directly behind or in front of me. My first two encounters were the same week of the race when I flew to Paris to see my team ART Grand Prix, to prepare for the Austrian race. The flight from Bristol to Paris is only an hour, but for a good portion there was that crying baby in my ear. Worse than that, the return flight the day after, I had yet another child screaming in my ear. A one-off I thought; a fluke, an anomaly...it happens to the best of us I thought.
I thought very wrong. The flight out to Austria on the Wednesday, I made sure I booked the seats nice and early, got some good seats on the plane. These seats were the complete opposite ends to that of the plane to the Paris flight, and we were first ones on the plane. It was even a different airline. At this point, I was looking forward to some sleep, having caught the really early London flight; it was a 2am wake-up call. I settled down, closed my eyes, and was yet again awoken to a crying flipping baby. I couldn’t believe it. He was right behind me, the little so and so. And the worst bit was that the piercing sound of his cry was bouncing off the window seat wall, and straight into my ear drum. I quite literally could not believe it. It’s hard to say anything, how can you? It’s just as bad for the parents. Well not these parents; they seemed to love the attention.
Anyway, bar that one complaint, I managed to make it safely and Thursday we did all the necessary preparation for the weekend. The track walk on Thursday was pretty mental, with thousands upon thousands of people flooding the pit straight to get a glimpse of anything to do with F1. However, as my team-mate Alex Fontana pointed out, time seemed to go fairly fast for us, and in no time the Free Practice session was upon us.
I was P10 in practice, but having not been there before, I was fairly content and confident I could put everything together for qualifying the following morning. It was a really fun track to drive, with the first three corners being all about braking late and hard, and the final four corners all about being super smooth and carrying good speed. It had a nice mixture of corners and a nice flow to it. I really enjoyed it.
Qualifying was a total disaster for me. I qualified P12 having just had a poor run in the 30 minute session. P12 isn’t a total disaster in reality, as you can easily fight into the top eight from there. But my goal before the session was to break into the top three, and it was certainly possible. But with a slightly mishandling car, and a bad run with traffic, that was it. P12 and 0.5 seconds off pole. I reset myself and readied for the races. Last year, driving for Marussia, I made it a bit of a habit (nearly every race) going from 16th to 9th/10th in the races. So going from P12 to the top 8 should be easy work.
I’ve been working hard on getting the start procedure right with my team, and it paid off quite nicely in the races this weekend. I was unfortunate not to reap any reward from the quick starts that I made. A crash at Turn 1 forced me to go wide and I lost my positions that I had gained. After that, I was a bit of a sitting duck as my brakes were not at 100 per cent, and I was getting eaten alive in the braking zones. I had to nurse the car home in 15th place and a chunk of the way back from the guy in 14th. I could not fight, I could not attack, I could do nothing but sit there and take this one on the chin. My engineer and I gambled a bit on the set-up, and we tried to have the optimum balance for me during the race, but it just wasn’t good. So, this was a race that I did not understand. Never have I let anyone overtake me so easily and not been able to fight back. I was not in the race at all and I was gutted. I was gutted to come off the back of a podium finish in Barcelona and running well inside the top six all weekend, to going to Austria and being shuffled down the order.
So we spent long into the evening checking over things and working on our set-up. ART are one of the best in the business, if not the best. We had a disappointing race, yes, and the weekend was effectively over for scoring high points, but the aim for the remaining race on Sunday was to try and get everything sorted and ready for Silverstone in two weeks. We can’t afford to have another race weekend like this one, so getting everything sorted immediately was absolutely vital.
Race two’s start was as good as race one’s...and after the opening two laps, I had gone from 15th to eighth place. I was happy and fighting again. The changes my engineer and I had made were positive, and seemed to be working. The car felt nice again and the brakes were good. Lap four and five I was really putting pressure on seventh place...I was feeling good. The potential to make it in the top five was there. However, lap five, I started to struggle with the balance again. Perhaps we actually hadn’t made a big enough change on the car. The race was after all 18 laps not six laps long. So from lap six until 18 I started to drop back and lose pace to the leaders.
With five laps to go, I was under some intense pressure from the car behind in ninth. One slight mistake and I was out of the points-scoring position. For my sake, for my team’s sake and for my sponsor Bristol Sport’s sake, I just had to get this eighth place. It would feel like a mini-victory, to an otherwise tough weekend.
I managed to finish the race in eighth and claim that one point. No more I could do from 15th place and with the balance that I had in the car. It was a great shame as I feel like I could have had a really exciting race and climbed up into the top five.
Nonetheless, eighth place it was and a single championship point for good measure. It was an encouraging end and I’m glad we ended it on a fairly positive note. We spent a further few hours in the afternoon debriefing and trying to analyse what went wrong this weekend. It just wasn’t good enough from us. We accept that, we learn and we move on fast.
I got back on the plane home ready to rest up and get some sleep. I wanted to write this weekend off immediately and try and focus in for Silverstone. I took my seat and just prayed that I would at least get a screaming baby-free flight. Five minutes later...’Wahhh, wahhhhhhh, wahhhhhh’. I didn’t even flicker; I just smiled and went to sleep. Sometimes you have to accept things as they are. When it doesn’t go your way, it doesn’t go your way. I just wish I could have thrown the baby the other way!
The next race is next weekend at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. The British GP is one of my all time favourite races; the crowds are amazing, the track is amazing and the support for British drivers is just incredible. I can’t wait to be one of those British drivers racing at the famous track!
Last year ART Grand Prix took a great feature race win on Saturday. For 2014, I will be looking to repeat this feat for them. I’m confident they will deliver me the car and we can bounce back with a bang.
Wish me luck! I will be giving it my absolute all to win, and with the extra little bit of adrenaline from the crowd, I cannot wait.
With just a two-hour drive away from my home city Bristol, one thing is for absolute certain, I will not be encountering a crying baby on the way!! Hallelujah.
#TeamDino
Follow Dino Zamparelli on Twitter: @DinoZamparelli
