Guest Column
Bruno Del Pino’s Melbourne Weekend Debrief
It was a hugely successful start to the 2026 campaign for Bruno Del Pino and Van Amersfoort Racing.
The Spaniard won the first race of the season, taking victory in the Sprint Race, and followed that up with a P4 finish and fastest lap point in Sunday’s Feature Race.
Reflecting on the weekend, Del Pino analysed where things had gone well and where he felt there was room for improvement.
Overall though, the Van Amersfoort driver was very pleased with his and his team’s efforts.
STARTING THE YEAR WELL
“The travel was worth it for sure! I think we started off in the right direction with the team. Winning yesterday was incredible, feeling a bit sad because of the points that we only got to grab half of it. Today I think it was a really good day for us. A bit sad in my opinion because I could have done a bit better.
“I could have maybe grabbed that podium, but either way we've done the job. We're leaving here with really good feelings and really confident for the next couple of rounds. I'm really happy with the team. I'm really happy with how we started off the season.
“I don't want to talk about championships. I don't want to talk about championship positions because of course there's many more rounds to come.
“There are many more things that can happen both good and bad. So I'm focusing on just keeping the momentum and keeping the consistency that we've been building up. I think this weekend has been really consistent.
“I just showed that if you've been consistent then by the end of the weekend, you get the points. That's what I'm trying to achieve for every race weekend. There's more to come and then from there we will see where we are.”
AREAS TO IMPROVE
“I think every area has to improve. We're not the best team in any of the areas. I think we did a really good job. We're up there, but we need to be the best.
“Qualifying didn't turn out the way that I wanted, even though that helped us get points. It's a thing that we need to look at. It's a thing that I also need to look at because from my side it can be better too. So we’ll just keep on working.”
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TAKING HIS CHANCES
“I think every driver has… it's a chaotic championship. So, I try to stay out of trouble. I tried to maximise the opportunities I had, the mistakes from the others. And then I tried to save the tyres at the beginning when it was a DRS train. You could see that towards the end of the race, there were drivers struggling a lot.
“That's where I took my opportunity. Then when I was behind Kato, I kind of just cooled down the tyres a bit to try and push the last three laps. In the end, it was a Safety Car, so I couldn't take advantage of that.
“Overall, I’m quite happy. I could have pushed a bit more, to be closer to Kato, maybe gotten the opportunity into T9 with DRS.
“So that's the only criticism that I take from my race. But I think apart from, I think it was really well executed.”