Round 6 Post Qualifying Press Conference

FIA Formula 3: Hello and welcome to Spielberg for our Post-Qualifying press conference. Our top three finishers today, in third place we have Noah Stromsted from TRIDENT, second is Brad Benavides from AIX Racing and taking Pole Position for the second time is Nikola Tsolov of Campos Racing. Nikola, congratulations, your second Pole Position of the season, you just seemed to keep finding lap time out there, just how good was that Pole Position lap?

Nikola Tsolov: Yeah it was quite good, I mean there is always more on the table. I have been quite quick since FP, since the first push. There wasn’t a lap that I didn’t feel confident in the car. It’s good to keep going with that rhythm. I have been in the top two for the last three qualis so that’s what we are looking for. It is also good that my Championship rivals are not really close behind at the moment. Let’s see what we can do in the races because nothing is guaranteed, stuff like Barcelona can happen.

FIA Formula 3: You were fastest in practice, hitting the ground running this weekend was that a result of hard work done with the team prior to coming here?

Tsolov: Yeah I think obviously we were trying to find what the issues were in Barcelona, because in Set one and Set two I wasn’t very fast. I did different things one the warmup in set three which pumped me up to P2, and we had time to analyse which was good. I think we have found most of the things we need. I think it’s good to show that we can be consistently up there.

FIA Formula 3: You mentioned your Championship rivals, the second half of the season starts here and with Câmara down in seventh does it feel like a chance to make some gains in the Championship standings?

Tsolov: Yeah, definitely. I already felt that in Barcelona it was quite close before the Feature Race. I then tried to go for too much on the start and stalled, this is a mistake that I learn from. Hopefully from now on consistency will be the way to go. No pressure for tomorrow, it is a race to learn, and we will see what we can do on Sunday.

FIA Formula 3: Thanks Nikola. Moving on to you Brad, congratulations today. Welcome to the Press Conference, your best qualifying performance in F3, how pleased are you with today's result?

Brad Benavides: To be frank it was quick unexpected, out of the blue. Happy to be here, it’s a first for me. Alternatively from Nikola’s perspective I didn’t get a good Free Practice, I was in the gravel, I beached it unfortunately. But not a lot of people got a lap in Free Practice anyways, so I didn’t miss out on much. Happy to be able to translate that adversity from Free Practice to this good result in Qualifying. It is a good place to start on Sunday

FIA Formula 3: It’s something I wanted to ask about, bouncing back from that Practice session. How hard is that to do reset going into Qualifying when you need to push the limits?

Benavides: We always have in the back of our minds the risk management associated with our endeavour. I never like to drive with expectations. I just focus on the job at hand, I have faith and just focus to do a good job. Coming from the last three rounds it’s a good result versus what I have put on the board so far in Qualifying. I didn’t really have that kind of thought crossing my mind when I was focused on doing my driving.

FIA Formula 3: You mentioned the last few rounds you’ve been setting into the team over that period, do you feel confident and comfortable enough now to fight for the win, you said this was an unexpected result.

Benavides: Yeah we keep chipping away. We have been working really hard with AIX. As you know I didn’t start the season, I came in at Round 3 in Imola, so we have been working very hard behind the scenes. This is obviously a good testament to that work that we have put in and our work ethic. We consider ourselves to be a family as well at AIX Racing. In terms of what I can anticipate with race pace or competence on Sunday, it is to be seen. But the good thing is that we have tomorrow to gauge the car set-up and try and go for the maximum points on Sunday for sure.

FIA Formula 3: Noah moving into you now. Third on the grid today, how was qualifying from your perspective?

Noah Stromsted: Quite a tricky start, I didn’t manage to put in a good lap on the first set of tyres. I did some mistakes so not a great run from me. Then I decided to go a bit different to everyone else instead of doing a cooldown lap and then going for a third push, I decided to box and put on a new set of tyres to do one push lap. There was more about getting the feeling in the car, the track on the Soft tyres and I think it worked quite well. Then we went with everyone in the end on our third set of tyres. I left it for the last lap which was pretty okay. The warmup was not the best because I had to follow the guys around to get the tow but in the end it’s a pretty good result.

FIA Formula 3: It was so close out there as well just two thousandths of second between yourself and Brad in that final timing screens. How much risk are you having to take out there on these qualifying laps knowing how close the margins are?

Stromsted: I think today or on this track in general it is very close, so you have to do a clean lap without mistakes for sure. But also, you need to push. Here we have the gravel as the limit so if you push too hard then you lose quite a lot of time, like what I did in my first set of tyres. It’s a balance.

FIA Formula 3: On the two previous occasions that you have qualified in the top three this season, you have gone on to finish on the podium in the Feature Race. How confident are you with doing the same on Sunday?

Stromsted: This track is a bit different with three DRS zones and normally the racing here is quite chaotic. We will see what we can do, but I think it is going to be a tough one.

FIA Formula 3: Well done Noah, congratulations everyone.