After the restart after the safety car I overtook Soucek straight away, which was very important for me. Then I just nursed the tyres and kept up with Jiminez and Zaugg, I needed to be close to them as they still needed to pit. The whole thing worked out and when Glock pitted he wasn’t far enough ahead so I got into first place, then put in a decent pace all the way to the end of the race. ”
You had a fantastic start, the car looked strong the whole time, were you concerned about the risk of an early pitstop?
“I was very concerned, I knew tyres would be an issue here. My front left tyre got very badly deformed half-way through and I was struggling with some vibrations on the corners, and by at the end it was really bad. But I just hoped that it wouldn’t blow up and it didn’t. ”
How did it feel over the closing laps, nursing the car home?
“The car was strong and we didn’t struggle with the tyres. I knew that Glock wasn’t close enough with four laps to go to get me. He was 1.5s per lap faster than me and in four laps he couldn’t take ten seconds, so I just did the maths in my head and kept pushing. ”
You’re third in the championship now, did you expect to have such a strong start to the series?
“Honestly, not really. I was more worried about our test pace. It was a good surprise to be strong in Bahrain. I don’t think Paul Ricard showed our real pace and obviously, with it being my first year, I didn’t really know how the racing would be. But I seem to have adjusted well to GP2. Now I just need to work hard with the team to be at the front every time. ”
Did you expect a win as soon as your second weekend?
“No I didn’t. I was a bit concerned yesterday after qualifying about our race pace and how the car would deal with the tyres. I spent a lot of time with the engineers yesterday deciding our options for the race and we made a good call, not only strategically but with the set-up of the car, it was really consistent throughout the race. ”
Your mum’s here for first time, have you spoken to her yet?
“Yeah, one minute she was speechless then she was speaking non-stop nonsense! She’s really thrilled. I’ll catch up with her more a bit later! ”
Race 1
1. Bruno Senna (Arden International) - 10pts
2. Timo Glock (iSport International) - 8pts
3. Lucas Di Grassi (ART Grand Prix) - 6pts
4. Roldan Rodriguez (Minardi Piquet Sports) - 5pts
5. Borja Garcia (Durango) - 4pts
6. Mikhail Aleshin (ART Grand Prix) - 3pts
7. Sergio Jiminez (Racing Engineering) - 2pts
8. Javier Villa Racing Engineering) – 1pt
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