Bakk Chat: Had the pain, now for the gain.

Thursday, 5th July 2007

In his third exclusive column for Crash.net, GP2 rookie Christian Bakkerud exorcises his tough start to the season....

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Even though I was in some difficulty, I was always going to at least take the start in Sunday's sprint. No-one can knock you for trying your best, and that is what I was going to do. I made a good start, but then the painkillers started wearing off after about the eighth lap. David Price could see my times dropping off and he told me to pit - then the guys had to lift me out of the car! It really was a shame as we were running quite well up to then.

The next problem was that we didn’t have very long at all before the Monaco race, which was two weeks later. I went back home, got a lot of physio treatment and relaxed the back for a little bit so it could repair itself. For Monaco, it was fine, and I haven’t had a problem since.

Monaco is one of the most incredible places I've ever driven in – with the atmosphere and the history of the circuit, it really is a great place to drive. I can understand why it’s the one circuit all racing drivers want to have a go at - and I'm very pleased to say that I have done it. It's a great circuit as well, with some great and very famous corners, and I enjoyed every lap of it.

Unfortunately, we then had a long break between races, which is hard on us rookies, as we really want to get as much time in the car as possible so we can get the most out of it. We did have a two-day test at Paul Ricard, but that was in the week before Magny-Cours, so there was a lot of downtime.

We went to Ricard to try and test a load of different things on the car, as we had a few bits and pieces that we needed to try, but they didn’t really work out as well as we'd hoped. At least I suppose we found out which directions we shouldn't go in!

On a personal level, I'm still trying to get my head around the new tyres and getting the most out of them for qualifying, but I'm sure that will fall into place soon enough. The problem with GP2, to a certain extent, is that we only get two sets of new tyres a day in testing, and it would be nice to get three - or even four - some times, because then you can really start learning about them.