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With his arrival as a full time
driver for the Williams Racing Team Nicholas Latifi has been confronted by
the numerous demands all part of being a Formula One driver. But one aspect
of his process of learning has been his focus on the important part that
qualifying has and how to achieve the best results in what is a highly
stressful time for any Formula One driver. For Nicholas improving his
qualifying performance has been one of the most difficult aspects that he
has had to contend with in the opening races of the 2020 season.
He would seem to be in growing
confidence after each race with his race performances not been that far
behind his more experienced team-mate George Russell. This has been helped
by the improving performance of the teams FW43 as the team works through
introducing new updates as well as setup changes.
But qualifying has been very much a totally different experience for
Nicholas with George been consistently ahead of him in all the qualifying
sessions run so far in 2020. In a recent interview with Motorsport Week
Nicholas spoke of his improving performance as a driver plus also how
qualifying has been very much a work in progress.
Nicholas said: “I think coming into the season whenever I was asked about my
expectations the first thing I always said is I want to feel I’m making
gains."
“I’m making steps, in my understanding of the car, how comfortable I am in
the various situations of the car, and I’ll keep chipping away at it, and go
in that direction.
“Probably the Saturdays I have not seen quite the… potential. The
progression is there but the actual result and the outcome to go along with
that is not what I’d hoped it would have been at this stage.
“I think that’s probably the one point that out of the first races I’m a bit
disappointed with.
“There’s only really been one qualifying I’ve been happy with, we’ve been
unlucky in some qualifying [sessions], but I have also made mistakes in some
of the session where the car had more potential.
“I’ve still got to work on it, but everywhere else, especially the race pace
and race management, especially the last two ones, have been on a nice
upwards trend.”
Nicholas made it clear that despite the difficulties with qualifying the
rest of his experience as a Formula One driver has been one of been more and
more comfortable as each races passes.
Nicholas added: “There’s so many elements I feel I’m getting more
comfortable with overall: the engine modes, strategy, when I need to use it.
“I’m starting to have, let’s say, a bit more spare mental capacity to think
about and manage effectively all these extra things. There’s so much in F1
to manage besides.
Speaking of his recent race in
Britain Nicholas added: "was by far the race I felt the most comfortable in
that respect, so I’m looking forward to keep chipping away at that.” |
