Interview
Kaylen Frederick is aiming for a maiden Formula 3 podium this weekend, but the American is under no illusion the fight will be tough in the Barcelona heat. After securing the best qualifying result of his F3 career, the Hitech Grand Prix driver has turned his attention to the Sprint and has high hopes for the race on Saturday.
Frederick will be starting the Sprint Race from fourth on the grid following a post-Qualifying penalty for Zane Maloney, boosting his chances of a major result in round three of the season. Though he has a strong starting position, the Hitech man says keeping out of trouble could pay the most dividends by the end.
“Starting P4, the podium isn't too far away,” he said following Qualifying. But realistically, (I’m) just focused on getting the points and I think we're starting in a good spot for both races. Capitalising on anybody else's mistakes or any incidents that might happen will be important, and just having a clean start.
“Generally, we've had a really good race pace, looking at Bahrain and Imola. Hopefully that will translate here for us and we can get a podium but realistically, we're just trying to make sure we bring all the points we can back.”
With the highest temperatures of the weekend expected on Saturday, conditions have switched completely from the last time F3 visited Barcelona for in-season testing. The Pirelli tyres used during that test are the same as those on duty for this weekend. Frederick says that it will be challenging to keep them in a good state for the duration of the Sprint.
“The tyres won't be happy, that's for sure. It's going to make it really hard to stay behind anyone because any aero wash you get is just really gonna screw the tyres. You're gonna have to be pretty patient basically and not be too aggressive.
“We’ll see what happens, but it's been a while since we've done any race in temperatures like this. It's a pretty bad track in terms of tyre deg, so we'll see how much that affects us. It's hard to get a good feel for it. All the testing we did it was a lot cooler than this as well.”