French GP: Adjusting to the upgrades

Looking ahead to this weekend’s French Grand Prix, the main thing to say is that I’m going to get the upgrade parts on my car for the first time.

This means I’ll have the same spec car as my teammate, which hasn’t been the case for quite a few races – even prior to the upgrade debut at Silverstone. There have always been some little differences between our cars here and there.

We’ve seen positive signs with it on Alex’s car, especially in Austria when he got some proper running in, and we gathered a lot of back-to-back and cross-car comparison data. We know the upgrade does bring extra performance – although how much will probably vary from track to track.

From what I’m hearing, some of the new characteristics that come with the upgrade parts will take a bit of adjustment from my side, so I’m expecting to have to adapt my driving quickly and set up the car in a slightly different way to get around that.

But the important point is that the upgrade should bring better lap times. And a few tenths here and there could have made a big difference in recent races and possibly put us in points contention. Hopefully the upgrade can put us back into that sweet spot where we can be on the cusp of the points more often than not.

In terms of my objectives in France, I’m targeting a clean, straightforward weekend in order to try and evaluate the new package on the track. Paul Ricard is unique in that without walls, grass and gravel, it’s very exposed and can often be very windy – which might not bode too well for us. Largely though, this weekend will be about learning.