In his second exclusive column for Crash.net, GP2’s newest race-winner Bruno Senna tells us how it feels to have triumphed in the category at only his third attempt, and what he believes he can achieve over the remainder of the campaign, beginning with the series’ jewel in the crown – Monaco.
Winning my first race in GP2 at only my third start felt really good. In winter testing we struggled a little bit in terms of speed, but suddenly we managed to find a bit of pace. When I first joined Arden the car hadn’t been developed that much, but now with every race we go to we are developing it some more. I honestly was expecting to have results later on in the season, but I can’t complain if they have come earlier rather than later!
I felt confident going into the weekend in Barcelona, but I wasn’t expecting to win! In fact, I think I drove better during the practice session than I did in qualifying. I probably overdrove a little bit in qualifying, but obviously it all worked out anyway.
The feature race was a tough one, but everything went well for us. I was actually a bit worried about tyre wear, because we took a gamble by stopping early in the race under the safety car. It was a great team effort though – the guys all did everything perfectly. I drove a very good race as well, didn’t use the tyres too much and had pretty good pace throughout.
To be truthful I didn’t feel a lot of pressure during the race. My start was good, then later on I knew
Timo Glock was going to have to pit, but equally I knew we were close enough to be able to pip him when he came out, and it all worked out fine.
When he came back onto the circuit again I knew he had good pace, but for quite a few laps before he pitted he hadn’t been able to open out a gap over me. I was lapping at the same speed as he was, and I kept my pace up all the way to the end of the race. Timo overtook Lucas di Grassi and then began to gain on me a lot, but even if he had caught me I know I would have made it very hard for him to get past.
