Breaking into the world of Formula One can be incredibly exciting, but it's also a big and daunting step forward for a rookie and one that needs time to build confidence and develop.
Giedo van der Garde is one of four rookie drivers on the 2013 grid and despite some rough patches, he has had a solid and progressive start to the season so far. Ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix, Giedo took time out of his busy schedule to answer some of my questions.
I started off by asking him how he has settled into life as a race driver at Caterham. The Leafield based team recruited him in 2012 as their test driver and that has really helped him to integrate himself within the team, build bonds and sped up the 'settling in' process.
"It's good, really good," he said on that very subject. "I said at the start of the year that I wanted to use the early races to find my way, as a rookie, in F1, and I've done that. The team has been really good in helping me settle in and with the time we had in 2012 as well, it's all good." The Dutch driver admits that there are area's to improve but at the end of the day, that's life: "There's obviously areas we can all improve, but that's true whatever you do."
But it's a big leap to go from racing in GP2 and driving the car during the occasional FP1 session to racing for an hour and a half almost every other weekend, did his pre-season expectations match what he is doing right now? "Kind of. There's nothing to prepare you for what it feels like sitting on the grid at race on in Australia, that really was special, but we used a lot of 2012 to prepare for the step up to race driver and it's been pretty much what we expected."
So by that, does he mean that he had already secured his drive mid-way through 2012? Perhaps, but moving on. Every race driver sets themselves goals or aims prior to the start of the season. Have they been met for van der Garde? "I have set goals and so far we're getting there," he admitted. "As I said, the early races were about finding my feet, bit I think I showed in Spain and particularly in Monaco what I can do in a car I can push with and with a team who trusts me - likewise getting into Q2 and making the call to go to slicks in Monaco in that session was a good sign of how it's all working."
However he admitted that a Formula One driver can never be fully prepared for making their debut: "You're never totally prepared for anything as unpredictable things can happen, so however prepared you are something always comes up." But asked how he felt he performed during that first race in Australia, he replied: "I think I performed okay - for my first race."
Last season he raced in GP2, finishing sixth in the championship. I was interested to hear what the main differences and challenges are from making that step up from GP2 to F1, how different are they? "It's hard to say because I'd prepared all through 2012 for it, and had access to F1 for a while with other teams. The obvious difference in the car is more power, better brakes and more downforce, but they you have all the additional people to work with in F1 - engineers, mechanics, technical people, communications people - in GP2 about 80% of your time is the car and races, in F1 it's about 20%."
It was a fascinating insight into how big a step up it really is and how much more time drivers spend away from the car - I imagine it definitely takes some getting used to. As said earlier, one of his goals is to continually improve and so far he feels he is doing that: "The performance keeps improving. As the car improves so does my own performance, so year, at the moment I'm happy but there is always room to improve."
Quite rightly so and no one can expect van der Garde to be faultless out of the box - no one ever is. Even triple world champion Sebastian Vettel makes errors or has a bad race although it is seemingly rare in comparison. Despite a few tricky qualifying sessions where he has been matching or finishing just behind his more experienced team-mate, the 28-year-old was one of the stars of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend thanks to his inspired qualifying drive that saw him make it into Q2 and qualifying 15th on the grid.
So how did that feel? "Pretty cool," he admits. "It was a great feeling seeing what it meant to the whole team to do that, particularly with Tony Fernandes there was well, but really it was just another step. Hopefully there will be more days like that to come, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be." He is clearly confident that Caterham can latch on to the midfield by the end of the season and it's certainly their aim - it has been for some time. However they showed strong progress over the past few races and definitely closed the gap on Marussia - the battle at the back is heating up considerably.
Whilst Giedo was happy to answer my questions on the season so far, his progress and aims, when I brought up the subject of Canada and his messy race where he got caught up in two separate incidents he wasn't up for talking about it. "I don't really want to go over either again. I took the punishment and apologised to Mark on Twitter and in the team press release, so now we've all moved on."
And rightfully so. Formula One is always looking forward and I admire him for wanting to move on and put it behind him. All F1 drivers experience those kind of incidents and it's all part of the learning process - we must remember it was only his seventh ever Formula One race. Moving swiftly on from that, I asked him about the dreaded 'T' word; tyres.
Whilst plenty of focus has been at the front of the field regarding tyre wear and complaints, how are Caterham working with the Pirelli compounds and what does he make of them? "Look, it's the same for everyone," he admitted. "We have to work with the tyres given to us, same as all the teams. Some teams are better at understanding them and we're doing a pretty good job on that side, and some drivers manage them better than others."
Him personally? "For me it's all part of the learning curve. I'm improving my tyre management and that's the important bit - work hard to get the most out of everything you have to work with."
And on a closing note, can Caterham score points this season? His answer was short: "who knows..."
We will have to find out. Thanks to Tom Webb at Caterham for getting Giedo to answer my questions and thanks to the man himself for taking the time to share his insight into Formula One as a rookie.
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GvanderGarde
Follow his team on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyCaterhamF1
 |
| (c) Caterham F1 Team |
I started off by asking him how he has settled into life as a race driver at Caterham. The Leafield based team recruited him in 2012 as their test driver and that has really helped him to integrate himself within the team, build bonds and sped up the 'settling in' process.
"It's good, really good," he said on that very subject. "I said at the start of the year that I wanted to use the early races to find my way, as a rookie, in F1, and I've done that. The team has been really good in helping me settle in and with the time we had in 2012 as well, it's all good." The Dutch driver admits that there are area's to improve but at the end of the day, that's life: "There's obviously areas we can all improve, but that's true whatever you do."
But it's a big leap to go from racing in GP2 and driving the car during the occasional FP1 session to racing for an hour and a half almost every other weekend, did his pre-season expectations match what he is doing right now? "Kind of. There's nothing to prepare you for what it feels like sitting on the grid at race on in Australia, that really was special, but we used a lot of 2012 to prepare for the step up to race driver and it's been pretty much what we expected."
So by that, does he mean that he had already secured his drive mid-way through 2012? Perhaps, but moving on. Every race driver sets themselves goals or aims prior to the start of the season. Have they been met for van der Garde? "I have set goals and so far we're getting there," he admitted. "As I said, the early races were about finding my feet, bit I think I showed in Spain and particularly in Monaco what I can do in a car I can push with and with a team who trusts me - likewise getting into Q2 and making the call to go to slicks in Monaco in that session was a good sign of how it's all working."
However he admitted that a Formula One driver can never be fully prepared for making their debut: "You're never totally prepared for anything as unpredictable things can happen, so however prepared you are something always comes up." But asked how he felt he performed during that first race in Australia, he replied: "I think I performed okay - for my first race."
Last season he raced in GP2, finishing sixth in the championship. I was interested to hear what the main differences and challenges are from making that step up from GP2 to F1, how different are they? "It's hard to say because I'd prepared all through 2012 for it, and had access to F1 for a while with other teams. The obvious difference in the car is more power, better brakes and more downforce, but they you have all the additional people to work with in F1 - engineers, mechanics, technical people, communications people - in GP2 about 80% of your time is the car and races, in F1 it's about 20%."
It was a fascinating insight into how big a step up it really is and how much more time drivers spend away from the car - I imagine it definitely takes some getting used to. As said earlier, one of his goals is to continually improve and so far he feels he is doing that: "The performance keeps improving. As the car improves so does my own performance, so year, at the moment I'm happy but there is always room to improve."
 |
| (c) Caterham F1 Team |
So how did that feel? "Pretty cool," he admits. "It was a great feeling seeing what it meant to the whole team to do that, particularly with Tony Fernandes there was well, but really it was just another step. Hopefully there will be more days like that to come, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be." He is clearly confident that Caterham can latch on to the midfield by the end of the season and it's certainly their aim - it has been for some time. However they showed strong progress over the past few races and definitely closed the gap on Marussia - the battle at the back is heating up considerably.
Whilst Giedo was happy to answer my questions on the season so far, his progress and aims, when I brought up the subject of Canada and his messy race where he got caught up in two separate incidents he wasn't up for talking about it. "I don't really want to go over either again. I took the punishment and apologised to Mark on Twitter and in the team press release, so now we've all moved on."
And rightfully so. Formula One is always looking forward and I admire him for wanting to move on and put it behind him. All F1 drivers experience those kind of incidents and it's all part of the learning process - we must remember it was only his seventh ever Formula One race. Moving swiftly on from that, I asked him about the dreaded 'T' word; tyres.
Whilst plenty of focus has been at the front of the field regarding tyre wear and complaints, how are Caterham working with the Pirelli compounds and what does he make of them? "Look, it's the same for everyone," he admitted. "We have to work with the tyres given to us, same as all the teams. Some teams are better at understanding them and we're doing a pretty good job on that side, and some drivers manage them better than others."
 |
| (c) Caterham F1 Team |
And on a closing note, can Caterham score points this season? His answer was short: "who knows..."
We will have to find out. Thanks to Tom Webb at Caterham for getting Giedo to answer my questions and thanks to the man himself for taking the time to share his insight into Formula One as a rookie.
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GvanderGarde
Follow his team on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyCaterhamF1
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