Germany was my first weekend with Arden, and we went to Hockenheim to learn a little bit about each other. For me, the feeling I have is pretty good with the team and I feel pretty confident, I like all the guys and I like the way they work. I really like the engineers and the mentality they have: I can see that they have a lot of motivation, and also with the feedback me and Buemi were always asking the same thing and going in the same directions. This was a really good motivation for the next race, because we are trying to improve the car in exactly the same way, which is good.
Maybe the results didn't come out so well over the weekend, but honestly we expected this: a race weekend is quite fast and not the best place to learn, so it was always going to be quite hard. But I am glad I made the move: I don't want say anything about my former team because I don't think it is right, but for me the feeling is much better with Arden.
Free practice conditions were difficult because I made a mistake and spun off at the start of the session when the track was drying: the car was fine, I was at the exit of turn one so it was close to the pit exit, and the car wasn't damaged at all, I had it in recovery but the marshals didn't want to push me to restart the engine, which was safe to be honest, so they pushed me into the paddock instead.
I just went on the radio and said to the guys come and see if there is anything we can do, and asked if they could restart the engine for me because it was really close, only 100 metres or so from the pit entrance. So they came and we pulled the car back to the pitlane and restarted the engine from there: of course we asked if it was allowed, and it was possible. We were then able to do some laps, and the tyres had a flat spot but still I was able to get a feeling for the car.
In qualifying I was okay on the first set but I think maybe it was possible to go a little bit faster, but then with the second set the circuit was slower because the temperatures dropped, so I couldn't improve: it was a shame, but bit by bit the car was feeling better for me. I wanted to do better, of course, but I could see that it will come.
In the first race I had a good start and was up to P9, and then I had Petrov in front of me and got past him for P8, but he is really hard to get past and in passing him I had to go a little bit wide, which meant Parente got past both of us and I only had the position for a few seconds! That was my position for the rest of the race until the end when I was suffering a little bit of rear locking and was losing some time and some positions: the brake pedal was just getting longer and longer, so I was already thinking I would have to retire.
But then it started to rain! I really wanted to push and maybe make up some positions, and I thought it was exactly the possibility I needed, but I was really pushing and because of the little brake problem I made a mistake and spun off, and the engine went down unfortunately so I couldn't restart and that was it.
But for me it was a good race for getting used to the car: I was just behind Parente for a long time which was quite good, because he ended up on the podium, so I was a little disappointed that I went off. Of course, that meant in race two I started from the back, and Herck stalled in front of me so I avoided him, but somehow he got restarted again when I was there and he hit my rear wheel and there was nothing I could do.
Of course the result of this race is not the best, but I am at Arden and I have a really good feeling with the team, and we still have four races to go: one is a new circuit for everybody, and two of the other races are the two best weekends for me last year, Spa and Monza, so I still have a chance to come back and to prove myself that I can still score points, podiums, and then back to the top.
Until next time,
LucaFor more information on Luca Filippi, visit http://www.lucafilippi.com.
