After the success of Dino's first chapter writing at JLF1 here, here is chapter 2. Zamparelli is one of Britain's young driving talents and he is currently racing in the FIA Formula 2 series. In chapter 1 Dino talked about his pre-season and now, 3 rounds in, he discusses his performances in Portugal and Germany.
Portugal took place on the 27/28/29th of April at the
Algarve circuit. I hadn’t driven the F2 car at the circuit before so I was very
much on a steep learning curve. The whole weekend was unfortunately blotted by
a mystery set up issue which would make the car incredibly difficult to drive.
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| (c) Formula 2 |
Since the last chapter I’ve had two races in the Formula 2
Championship– wow time does really fly.
The first race was in Portugal and the second was in
Germany. Both weekends could have gone better; however, considering that I just
about made it on both outings, I can’t be too dissatisfied.
Starting from 10th in race one, I managed to make
up two places at the start and up into 8th. From there I had to
defend for all my life and stumble across the line in 8th. It was
very much a damage limitation exercise.
For race two, I was starting in 5th place.
Qualifying was a wet session and the car was nice to drive. I was praying for
rain as the car was great to drive in the wet. In the dry the car was a handful
and guess what? It was dry! I was going to be up against it for the whole race
as I knew the setup issue would not be cured in the dry. I made a good start
and held my position and pulled away from the group behind me. It was on about
lap 6 that the car started to prove harder and harder to drive. With 18 laps
still to go, I would have to defend my 5th place like the Italians
used to defend a one goal lead in Football.
It was probably the best race I’ve ever done in terms of
defence. Every lap I had to be clever with my defence to make sure I didn’t
lose my position. For the first 4 laps of the race, the car was fine. However,
after lap 4 or 5, the car started to oversteer really badly. From there on in I
had to be really clever and just concentrate on keeping the train that was
forming behind me!
The weekend as a whole didn’t go to plan. We made a lot of changes to
the car to try and cure the issue but unfortunately it didn’t make too much of
a difference. The positives for me were that I was comfortable in the wet and
really on the pace. In the dry, despite having the set up issue, I still had
two very strong races and defended well.
The second race took place in Germany last weekend (25/26/27th
May), at the famous Nurburgring circuit. Once again I didn’t know the circuit
as I’d never raced there before. However, we had two practice sessions on
Friday in which I was able to learn the circuit.
The weekend didn’t quite fall my way. Nothing quite clicked
and I had to be content with starting 10th in both races. I actually
got really unlucky with traffic on both qualifying sessions and had the pace to
be in the top 3. But anyway, 10th was to be my starting position.
I focused on nailing the starts. In the first race I made a
good start and was right up to 8th place. I started to settle into
my rhythm when a competitor ahead appeared to lose control of his car ahead. As
I looked up and into the corner, I started to brace myself to try and avoid him
and as I did this, I lost control of my own car. It was a clear mistake on my
behalf – a classic case of taking your eye off the ball so to speak. My car
spun to a halt and I fell to the back of the grid. I did manage to climb up to
13th by the end with tyres that you would probably want to throw out
straight away. Tyre management on these tyres in a 40 minute race is bad
enough; so to have a spin on them early on in the race is like putting a sharp
knife into them and letting the air out slowly. Basically my grip levels were
atrocious from then on in.
For race two, I again was in 10th at the start.
However I had made a strong start, and by lap 4 I had made some really good
moves to promote me to 7th. Unfortunately that was about all I could
do. I had a late go for 6th place, but couldn’t quite get it.
7th and 13th were my two results. This
though doesn’t tell the true story. The whole weekend was very positives. I had
two very good starts and the potential for a great weekend was there; but luck
and timing was not on my side.
However, my philosophy is that if you keep working and keep
trying, eventually it will come good. It’s like a numbers game, the more you
try, the more chance you have of being successful. So I’m going to keep on
going.
After all, it’s hard to beat somebody who never gives up!
Dino
Website: www.DinoZamparelli.com
Twitter:@DinoZamparelli
Facebook: Dino Zamparelli Racing
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