Javier Villa has his sights set firmly on a top three championship finish in GP2 in 2008 – but he warns that first both he and Racing Engineering must address the qualifying woes that left them so often having to fight their way up through the order from lowly grid positions in 2007.

The young Spaniard – who became GP2's youngest-ever race-winner when he triumphed at Magny-Cours back in mid-summer en route to sixth spot in the final drivers' standings – remains adamant more could have been achieved had he only been able to begin the feature outings from higher up on the starting grid.

“We won three races, but we felt we could have done more,” the 20-year-old reflected, speaking exclusively to Crash.net. “Next year everything will be new, with only three tests to get used to the car and prepare it beforehand. We don't know what the other teams and drivers are doing, but if I can finish in the top three in the championship I think that will be really good for me.”

Despite having developed a reputation as one of the best and cleanest overtakers in the business courtesy of his feature race charges, Villa knows those passing skills should never have been necessary, and insisted the principal focus for the 2008 campaign would be to begin the races much further towards the front, pointing to champion Timo Glock as a case-in-point. As to what happens beyond that, added the man who recently tested an F1 car for the first time with BMW, wait and see…

“The problem we had was we didn't qualify well,” readily admitted the former Spanish F3 front-runner, who found himself mobbed during a special exhibition in countryman Fernando Alonso's home town of Oviedo and who next year will be entering his fourth consecutive season with the Alfonso de Orleans-Borbon-run squad. “The best position we achieved was 13th, which made things pretty hard in the races.

“We were always in the top three or top five in practice, but then in qualifying I don't really know what happened, and qualifying is really important for the races. Timo was always starting towards the front, which is what we need to do next year.

“We need to be starting up on the front three rows of the grid, which would make things completely different. That's one thing we need to work on for next season – we need to be constantly racing to win.

“For me to be in Formula 1 in 2009 would be perfect, but for the moment the focus is on 2008 and GP2. It will be a long year and we will see what happens after that. I hope we can have two Spanish drivers in Formula 1 in 2009.”