GP2 Yas Marina review
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was my final appearance in the GP2 Series, and what a great way to bow out. I won the last race of the season, pretty much untroubled at the front, and was delighted to finish on a high note after two years with the DAMS team.
My weekend started well, with second fastest in free practice. But although we were second I don’t think we felt that would be achievable in the qualifying session. I felt we weren’t quite as strong as the lap times suggested, and that proved to be the case.
It was a scrappy qualifying session in terms of traffic. Also, I don’t think I quite maximised the session, even if I wasn’t far away from the maximum. It was a struggle to get front-end grip into the super-soft tyre, and there wasn’t a lot left in the car beyond what I managed, which gave me ninth place on the grid.
For the feature race we went for a long run on the medium ‘prime’ tyre before switching to the super-softs. That meant that after those who’d started on super-softs went into the pits I was up into second place, albeit a long way behind Nobuharu Matsushita. I lacked a bit of pace compared to Matsushita, and also we had a dodgy pit stop that possibly cost me sixth place. The right-front wheel went on, but the nut flew out of the wheelgun, and that scuppered our chances. But to be fair to DAMS, all year their pit stops have been mega, mega fast and overall it was our pace that let us down most.
That meant I finished eighth, which gave me reversed-grid pole position for Sunday. That’s never what you aim for, but when you’re in that situation you just make the most of it. I was quite nervous because I was on the medium tyres, but the guys had made a massive improvement on the balance of the car overnight and our pace was much better.
I knew Sergey Sirotkin had got up to second place and I thought for a long time that he was going to be on my case, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the gap opening. I had to make sure I kept pushing hard, because with that tyre you have to keep it hot to keep it in the operating window. If you stop pushing, they lose temperature and you can’t switch them on anymore.
So it was a brilliant sendoff after working for two years with the DAMS guys in GP2, and my third win of the year also boosted me nicely up the championship table to sixth place. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending really. Also, I was so happy to see my friend Pierre Gasly, my DAMS team-mate from 2015, win the championship. He’s been the dominant driver and deserves it. Hats off to him, and I’m so glad to have been there when he did it.
I’d also like to say thank you to the folks from my sponsor Terra Firma who were here this weekend supporting me. I hope I gave them something to cheer about, and I’m sure that with the way the Formula 1 finale panned out they had an exciting time!
That’s it for now. It’s been an exciting two years with DAMS and I’d like to say thanks for everything they’ve done, before looking ahead to 2017…
Qualifying: 9th Race 1: 4th (started on medium tyres, switched onto super-soft) Race 2: 1st
