For Sakon Yamamoto last weekend’s Belgian GP was his first ever trip to Spa, and as such he was the only driver in the field who was new to the circuit. And thanks to the July test, every other competitor except Nick Heidfeld and Sebastien Vettel had recent experience of the track and the revisions to the final part of the lap.
‘This was the first time for me to drive at Spa, ’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I struggled to learn the circuit, and also I could really push from the Friday. This weekend for me, two times braking trouble was really bad situation. That put me in a bad rhythm.
‘In a session you’re going faster, faster, faster, and then when you have trouble it stops the rhythm. But in the race I was really confident in the car and like I said, I could really push. If you do more running, you can know the car better. ’
Like Adrian Sutil, Sakon was on a two-stop strategy in the race, although he was less comfortable on the soft tyres in the opening stint. Despite that he ran comfortably ahead of Anthony Davidson (who started from the pits) and Alex Wurz (who spun on the second lap) until he pitted. He eventually finished 17th.
‘We did a two-stop strategy. I had a good start and I could have had a really good position but during the first stint on the soft tyres I really struggled, because the understeer was extremely bad for me. I couldn’t push, and I was really frustrated at that time.
‘But after changing the tyres form soft to hard, and also changing the front flap, then the car balance became better, and after that I could push in the second and third stint. I think both of them were very consistent. ’
Once again Sakon brought the car safely home, logging valuable data with the B-spec car on a ‘normal’ circuit as opposed to Monza, which has a unique aero package.
Sakon is now preparing himself for his home race at Fuji, where he is sure to have a lot of support. Only two current F1 drivers have actually raced on the revised track, and Spyker has both of them!
‘Spa was another good finish, and with the B-spec car were got a lot of information and we can now prepare for the next three Grands Prix. The next one is Fuji, my home country GP, so I’m really looking forward to going there with Spyker. It’s the big one for me…’
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