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Frederick hails Hitech Grand Prix’s ‘really positive’ opening race in Sakhir
Hitech Grand Prix driver Kaylen Frederick was full of praise for the team’s performance at the opening race of the 2022 Formula 3 season.
Starting from 18th on the grid, the American battled his way through the field to move up to eighth place at the chequered flag, while team-mate Isack Hadjar won his maiden race in the category.
“I think I’m pretty happy, considering where we started,” Frederick said. “We did have a pretty rough Qualifying, a couple of issues, so it looks like we improved some things for the race. I think from the whole team’s perspective, it was really positive.
“Even Nazim (Azman) who had an issue at the start dropped to the back and made it up to 16th. Isack obviously won and I made it up to P8. We had really strong race pace, so overall, I’m pretty happy with that. I made quite a good few moves so really happy with it.”
Frederick’s race was eventful from start to finish, as he battled with ART Grand Prix’s Juan Manuel Correa on the final lap to secure a top eight result. Frederick says that the move on Correa was the most difficult he had to produce.
“I think the hardest one was definitely on Correa at the end, when you got the tyres that are really hot and he’s obviously pushing to stay ahead,” he said. “It was a last lap move, that one was set up pretty early on, it went on for quite a few corners. So I think that one was probably the most satisfying.
“It's definitely a good racing track, very similar to the Red Bull Ring in terms of having three DRS zones. DRS is really powerful, so if you can manage to get somebody out of DRS range in front of you, it makes the move pretty easy.
“But from what I saw behind me, it looked like there was a couple of DRS trains and what-not. You could still get stuck in there, so I was glad I got out of that group early on so I could make more progress forwards.”
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With the Feature Race starting at 11.45am on Sunday in Bahrain, Frederick is hopeful that Hitech can enjoy another strong outing to begin its season.
“We haven’t quite had a look over everything yet. We’ll go through all that stuff but I think we’ve got a really good baseline for tomorrow.
“We’ll try to do the same thing again, with a bit longer of a race, maybe we can make some more progress.
“But we did also get a bit lucky with retirements from the ARTs, a lot of the Tridents and PREMAs weren’t up there as well. We did get a little bit lucky but I think we do have a good baseline for tomorrow.”