Câmara in a ‘good place’ after Imola practice but targeting improvements for Qualifying

Rafael Câmara was pleased with how his Imola weekend started but says he and TRIDENT can still improve ahead of Qualifying later today.

The Brazilian driver picked up where he left off in Sakhir – where he won the Feature Race – to top the timesheets of the opening session of Round 3, thanks to a 1:33.091.

Câmara’s lap was good enough to lead MP Motorsport’s Alessandro Giusti by 0.074s, and speaking afterwards, the TRIDENT rookie gave his thoughts on the session.

PRACTICE: Câmara sets the pace ahead of Giusti at Imola opener

“Quite good,” said Câmara when asked how his Free Practice went. “I’m happy to be back, it's a been a while not driving, but everything went smoothly during the session.

“I was able to build my run quite well and at the end of Practice we had a good lap time. I'm happy with the car, so we've started the right way.

“But there is still some work to do for quali, especially as we didn't use the Mediums, so it will be a new thing for us. But we know already about the step from Hard to Medium, so we can be confident as well for quali.”

The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari is a circuit that Câmara says he enjoys driving, and while there was a big margin from his first push lap of a 1:34.971 to his best effort, the 19-year-old explained that a big part of that was his improvements as a driver, and not just track evolution.

The Championship leader is keen to continue to find areas to better ahead of the afternoon Qualifying session.

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“There are always improvements that can be made,” said Câmara. “Even if the car is good there is always something you can find, but it's just small adjustments.

“Being on the Mediums, the balance, in theory, should not be perfect on the first run, so we will see how we will be, and also with my driving you can always find something.

“So, I will look over the data with my engineer, look at my setup, my driving as well and put it all together.”

Looking ahead to Qualifying with the tyre compound change, as well as the possible track and temperature differences expected, Câmara gave his views on he and TRIDENT will have handle everything thrown at them during the 30-minute session.

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“We just need to make it simple,” he said. “We need make it quite clear, we know what to do so we do not need to invent anything. We will see in quali how it will be and from then on, we will move and see what we can do.

“I think we are in a good place, P1 in Practice, and now we go back on the Mediums. We can extract a bit more on the Mediums, we will have a bit more grip, so we just need to put it all together and then I think we can be fighting for pole.”