Round 3 Post Sprint Race Press Conference

FIA Formula 3: Hello and welcome back to Imola where it’s time for our post-Sprint Race press conference with our top three finishers. In third place, Nikola Tsolov for Campos Racing. Second is Bruno Del Pino of MP Motorsport, and our race winner, Tim Tramnitz also of MP Motorsport. Tim, congratulations, your first win of the season, just talk us through how tough that one was with the Safety Cars and DRS to manage?

Tim Tramnitz: I think it’s important to get your first win of the year on the board. The DRS was very powerful. I didn’t expect it to be so powerful, I even got a little bit surprised when I went to overtake Bruno, it got quite close there. It wasn’t easy to manage because you had to push quite a bit for the second half of the lap to make a gap to the car behind juts to have a chance to stay in front. It looked like the DRS was almost seven or eight tenths. That’s for sure quite a lot.

FIA Formula 3: You made the same launch at both Safety Car restarts, was that going through your mind at all to maybe change things up? Tramnitz: Yeah for sure when you go into a race starting at the front, you always prepare for the situation that you are first for a restart. You watch some old onboards or videos of what worked well and what didn’t work. I just decided to myself the point I wanted to go. It worked quite well on restart one, for sure I thought about changing it through the race, but I thought with this one I was quite safe to stay in front, and I felt quite confident. That’s why I stuck to a similar procedure.

FIA Formula 3: You’ve closed the gap down to Rafael Câmara ahead of tomorrow, while the major points are handed out in the Feature, how happy are you to maximise today?

Tramnitz: For sure that’s important going into the race, this was my target to win the race. For tomorrow I hope I can use a bit of that Bahrain experience, just try to manage the tyres well. The pace looked good today but it’s always a different story when you have other cars around you. The management will be even more important. Let’s see with the safety cars as well. I think we should target the top five tomorrow.

FIA Formula 3: Thank you Tim, well done. Bruno, congratulations, your maiden F3 podium. Talk us through your race as you had to attack your teammate but defend from Nikola the entire race?

Bruno del Pino: Yes, the start was good, I managed to pull away a bit from the first lap. Then when DRS was enabled, it was a massive change, I had nothing to do when Tim passed me on the straight. After that managing tyres with the Safety Car cooling the tyres a bit, just trying to always be in the DRS as I knew Nikola was always behind me. The entire race was just about staying close with my teammate, being in the DRS. Nikola was pushing me, the tyres didn’t have that much deg so I was able to always be in between one second with my teammate and Nikola not being close enough to overtake me. The race was quite difficult because of the two safety cars. Managed to finish the entire race without any issues, without having to battle a lot, no deg which was quite nice. Not being really prepared for battling a lot but managed to keep all things clear and get a podium which is a first here.

FIA Formula 3: You got close on a couple of occasions to making a move for the lead. How tough is it when it’s your teammate you’re fighting with?

Del Pino: Yeah we obviously got the team rules that we can’t crash into each other. We managed to not fight a lot. We co-operated to be able to always be close to each other. Being able to not fight and just pull away from the guys behind. I didn’t have many opportunities to overtake to the entire race was just being behind him and being in the DRS. I think it was all clear.

FIA Formula 3: A 1-2 for the team and your best result of the season so far, how much of a confidence boost is this result for you?

Del Pino: As a rookie and first time here in Imola it really builds my confidence a lot. Third round of the season and I’ve already managed to get some good points. I got some points with a good result in Quali in Bahrain. Here, quali wasn’t mega but still nice to get the podium today which is an amazing thing that will help me a lot throughout the races.

FIA Formula 3: Thank you very much, good job today. On to you Nikola, it’s another podium this season for you and important points for the Championship. Are you satisfied with the result today or was there maybe more on the table for you?

Nikola Tsolov: Obviously P3 is not the result I wanted to be fighting for in the season in general, everyone can say that. But I think we tried to maximise as much as we could, which we did. Unfortunately for Mari, he had an issue so we couldn’t score many points as a team, but on my side, I can say I am decently satisfied with P3, because that helped me learn a little bit how the tyre management will be for tomorrow with dirty air. So, starting at the back tomorrow will be a bit more difficult but I am sure we can improve some things on the car which I already know, so that is already a good step.

FIA Formula 3: Tim already mentioned that the DRS was effective in terms of closing the gap down the Main Straight. But how tough is it to make a pass into the chicane?

Tsolov: Bruno was always within DRS of Tim, so that made it difficult for me. I felt I was losing on the straight line rather than gaining. I was probably ending up even further back in sector one and gaining it back in sectors two and three. So, if he had lost the DRS to Tim it would have been a nice battle for second place, but I think they managed it quite well, Bruno managed it quite well to stay with Tim, and he did a good race, so there wasn’t any opportunity for me to be honest. But, let’s see for tomorrow.

FIA Formula 3: Talking about tomorrow, there are more points to play for, and you were quite quick in the race today. From your starting position on the grid, what are you expecting in the Feature Race?

Tsolov: Looking at today I don’t think we are expecting as much deg as we thought. So, it will be really important to gain a lot of places at the start and try and push as much as we can at the beginning of the race, then see what we can do at the end. But definitely the approach is going to be more aggressive than we were today.

FIA Formula 3: Thank you Nikola, well done today everyone.