Sebastien Bourdais added his voice to the throng claiming that the French Grand Prix cannot be allowed to slip off the
Formula One schedule, but later admitted that he does not approach his home event any differently to the rest of the calendar.
The Toro Rosso driver is the only Frenchman currently in the top flight, having been rescued from the ailing Champ Car series at the end of 2007, and says that he feels an enormous amount of pride in representing his country both in
F1 and at Magny-Cours this weekend, but points out that it would be wrong to ramp up his performance simply for those who have come to support him.
"It is always nice to have 200 or 300 people in front of the garage on a Thursday," he admitted, "It is always a boost and it is really nice to feel supported but, in the meantime, it is a normal weekend and you need to treat it as such and give your best as usual. You can't really change your approach because it is your home grand prix, otherwise it means you are leaving something on the table everywhere else."
Despite having been singled out as one of the reasons why Toro Rosso had to delay the introduction of its all-new STR3 chassis until Monaco, Bourdais has found the car to be an improvement over its predecessor, even if he couldn't get it to work to his liking on the opening day of the French meeting.
“I got off on the wrong foot this morning, struggling to find the right balance on the car," he admitted, "The new aero package speaks for itself, in that I think we are a bit more competitive, but we will have to see what happens in qualifying to see what the real improvement is. Today, I was not on the same programme as [team-mate] Sebastian [Vettel] but, when we were on the same set of tyres, the times were quite close between us.
