Bahrain GP – post qualifying update

28.11.20

p20

1m30.182s

Bahrain comes with a sense of familiarity for me and the team, after a run of races in new or unexpected locations like Portugal and Turkey. It’s a track we know, we all have our references, so that definitely helped in getting up to speed.

Qualifying was fairly straightforward on my side of the garage. We had to take into account the track evolution in Bahrain, and the transition from daytime into night meant the circuit got faster as the session wore on. I was pretty satisfied with my qualifying laps, although the gap to George was more than I’d have liked.

Between us we had some set-up differences, which accounts for a lot of the time, but it’s up to me and the team to delve into the data and understand where I could have done a better job. It’s all part of the learning process and I’ll come back stronger. The race is tomorrow and that’s what I’m gearing up for.

We saw from the limited running I had in FP2 that tyres will be crucial in the race. The circuit is very aggressive on them – probably the toughest of the year – so hopefully that will make for an exciting race. It will be tricky to manage but that’s been one of my strengths this year. Having tasted victory here in F2 last year I’m hoping for a good strategy and a good outcome tomorrow.