Interview
Deligny hoping to keep momentum rolling after double top five finish in Barcelona
Fifth position was locked down this weekend by Enzo Deligny, as the Van Amersfoort Racing driver secured back-to-back top five finishes in Barcelona on a strong weekend for the Frenchman.
Deligny finished Sunday’s Feature Race ahead of teammate Bruno Del Pino, after the duo fought over a double-digit points haul.
It capped off a strong weekend for the Dutch squad, with other teammate Hiyu Yamakoshi on the podium in P2. Speaking in the paddock afterwards, Deligny was satisfied with his and his team’s efforts.
“I feel pretty good. It was definitely a good weekend. P5 was my result this weekend, so I locked it out for both races.
“We did good in Practice. We did well, started a bit slower just to kind of make sure we would improve everything we could. And then the team knew how to make the switch into quali, and we all got into the top 12, which was crucial.
“For me, it was possible to do better than P8, because on the first set we were P3, and on the second and third set the warm-up wasn't ideal, so I wasn't able to fully extract it in Qualifying, which meant we started a bit further back than we should have.
“But today the race pace was really good, I think we were one of the quickest on track. We made a good couple of overtakes to finish fifth, and good points for the championship. P6 in the Standings right now is a good place to keep going into the European season.”
The Barcelona Feature Race was a strategic one, with drivers having to manage on-track battles for position with keeping the Pirelli tyres alive enough to make it to the end without losing too much performance.
Deligny says that it was a tricky compromise to get right, but felt he did a good job with it, even if he felt that a better result could have been on but for a small loss under the Virtual Safety Car.
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“I saw some others like Freddie and Rivera, they were pushing a lot at the start, and I could see them sliding, so I knew I just needed to stay with the DRS, save my tyres, and then I'll get them at the end of the race, and that's what happened.
“Unfortunately, I lost a lot of time under the VSC, I don't know why, but that meant the gap to Badoer doubled during the VSC, so I had to do the whole race trying to catch him without the DRS, which was very hard because he had the DRS to Freddie, so I had to push my tyres more.
“So it was a bit hard, but otherwise the pace was really good, and I managed to finish close behind him as well.”
With the weeks’ break between Barcelona and Round 4 in Spielberg, the VAR driver says that the focus is now on keeping their momentum rolling, with the triple score on Sunday a good platform to build from.
The Red Bull Ring provides a different challenge for all the teams and drivers, but Deligny believes it’s Qualifying where the most can be gained for the Dutch team.
“I think if we just get Qualifying right, get a good lap on the last set in quali, we see that we have the race pace.
“Both here and in Melbourne the race pace was really good, so we just need to try in quali, top three, top five would be better, and we for sure can get a podium from there.”