Van Hoepen ready to hit ground running in Barcelona after important Monte Carlo podium

ART Grand Prix’s Laurens van Hoepen says he is aiming to build on his Monte Carlo Sprint Race podium this weekend in Barcelona.

The Dutch driver wound up third in the Sprint Race on Saturday, a result he says has been a restorative force for both him and the team after early season struggles.

Speaking ahead of Round 5 getting underway, van Hoepen explained why the Sprint top three result mattered, and why he hopes it should translate into another positive weekend this time around.

“It’s good to have had a good weekend in Monaco before coming here. It’s good momentum going into this race so I’m looking forward to it.

“It’s nice to have been on the podium, even if it was in the Sprint Race, it’s not where we wanted to be but it’s a good start at last. It’s been a really, really tough start to the year and that gives us a bit of momentum going into this weekend.

“But you feel a lot better after a weekend like that. You feel that you can fight more now. In Bahrain, I felt like I was just driving around and couldn’t do anything. Whereas I’m more in the fight and I think step-by-step, we’re getting there.”

“I can’t wait to get out on track again. The tests went quite well here, so I’m feeling confident. I think it’s the track I’ve driven the most in my career. I’ve done so many laps I don’t even know how many. Every pre-season test is here, and post-season.”

While that experience and familiarity with the track makes getting up to speed much more straight forward than last weekend’s job in Monaco, it does come at a price.

The teams and drivers have completed countless laps around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and that makes the margins even tighter.

READ MORE: PREVIEW: Back in Barcelona for Round 5

Van Hoepen says that Qualifying will be a big challenge and securing a top 12 start will be a tough ask despite the return to a conventional track after the split Qualifying sessions last weekend.

“I feel it makes it a lot more important to have a good lap in Qualifying and to really nail that final lap. Everybody knows this track well, so the times are going to be very close. If you do a little mistake, it’s going to drop you down the order beyond 12th.”

“We’ve also got 30 cars back out on track again which is a lot. It’s always really important to have good track position, even though it’s not quite as bad as Monaco, it’s still super important here.

“You don’t want to get hindered on a warm-up lap and you want to make sure you can start your lap with a proper gap to the car ahead.

“It’s important to be good in the high-speed. Also, in the medium and low-speed corners because this track has got it all. I think you just have to nail every corner and get to every apex like usual.”

Looking ahead to the on-track action, the ART driver says that he is eager to secure more points in both races as they aim to rebound from their tricky start to 2025.

With Barcelona marking the end of the first half of the campaign, he says the prospect of another positive weekend has the team feeling hopeful.

“It’s going to be so warm this weekend, so it’s going to be really important to manage the tyres in both races and even in Qualifying. I think we might even see some deg on Friday.

“Testing is always so specific you never know where everyone’s at because everybody is doing different things. But it helps that we were quick. You also have all the data we can learn from, so it’s a nice thing to have.

“It depends on where we start but I just want to score some good points again and be close in the Feature Race and to have a good round in general. Scoring in the Sprint, scoring in the Feature and taking quite a few points would be nice.”