Carlin: New kids on the block.

Friday, 21st March 2008

Abay, Alguersuari look to the season ahead.

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Q:
You’ve both moved up from Formula Renault and Formula BMW. What do you think of the F3 cars?

SA:
The cars are fantastic. It’s a proper little race car. It is such a good category for drivers and for engineers as well. You can really experiment with the cars and make them your own.

JA:
Yeah for me it’s really useful, because it’s very different from Formula Renault, as you can’t do much with the cars there. Even the driving style is different, here you have to cut into the corner very fast, the car has a lot of downforce, especially in the fast corners. You have to drive very smoothly and as Sam was saying you can work on set up much more than in most series. It’s much freer in terms of the set up changes you can make than championships of a similar level.

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SA:
Yeah, there’s much more things to learn from, that’s why so many drivers choose to do F3. And of course Carlin has a wind tunnel as well. I’d like to learn a bit more about that.

JA:
I think we can be really fast this year. For sure we still need to learn a lot, but I’m really looking forward to the first few races.

SA:
This year my aim is to learn as much as I possibly can, to prepare myself. If I can come out of this year knowing 20 per cent more than I do now, that’s a big achievement as there’s a lot to learn on these cars.

Q:
There’s a lot of talented drivers this year in British F3. Who do you see as your main competition?

SA:
There’s a lot of first year drivers, such as me, Jaime, Brendon, Oliver and Marcus [Ericsson], the second year drivers aren’t necessarily always ahead of us. That’s a good sign of how competitive the season is this year.

JA:
I think the field is very young this year. Last year everyone had a lot of experience, a lot of races under their belt. This year, everyone has less experience but is still very fast. That’s why it will be a good championship. I think you will see more variety in races this year, more drivers winning. The podiums will not be the same every race. I think it will make a nice championship.

SA:
Even last year in Formula BMW there were so many different winners. I think it will be the same in British F3 this year.