In his latest exclusive column for Crash.net, GP2 race-winner Bruno Senna reflects on a promising rookie season in Formula 1’s feeder series, as well as dropping some hints as to where he will be in 2008 and talking about returning to the circuit he calls ‘the best in the world’ one last time…
I think 2007 was a pretty good season for our first year. GP2 was initially a big step-up from F3. The races are longer; you have to get used to the distance and it’s more physical. You need to be fit both mentally and physically so as to be consistently quick all the time and get to the end of the races without making mistakes.
There are also greater tactics involved and you have to handle the strategy a bit more. The cars are different to drive too – the power isn’t a big deal, but the brakes are. It’s a fair jump in terms of driving style and you’re racing against a more competitive group, but I think I adapted pretty decently.
At the beginning of the year my aim was to finish in the top ten overall, get as many good results as possible and try to win a race along the way. It was about gaining experience as much as anything.
Winning in Barcelona was a good confidence boost. At that time things were going better than I had expected, and performing so well so early in the season released the pressure off my shoulders a bit, because it meant it wasn’t as if I had to spend the year trying to get a good result; I got it so early on. That was a pretty good thing for me.
The high points are always the good results and qualifying sessions. The low points for me were some races when we really struggled; there were times when we were miles off the pace, and in those situations it was really hard to identify the problem without resorting to desperation. There were some difficult times when I just needed to focus and learn as much as possible, and whenever we started the round off badly we always tried to develop and improve over the course of the weekend.
