Rafael Câmara had a tough weekend at the Austrian GP. The TRIDENT driver still managed to hold onto his lead in the F3 Championship. However, he insists of learning from the weekend’s mistakes to bounce back stronger in Silverstone.
After the disqualification of Feature Race winner, Nikola Tsolov, Câmara takes P5 finish in the feature race. This helps him remain his championship lead of 117 points, with a gap of 24 points to second place.
When asked about his race weekend in Austria, the championship leader stated:
“It was not the weekend we expected. In the Sprint Race, from my side it was not very good, but I was able to reset well and do a good race today.”
Learning from the mistakes to bounce back stronger
Although it was not the weekend he had hoped for, the young driver still secured double points for the team at the Red Bull Ring. When the championship leader reflected on the Austrian GP weekend, he expressed his optimism to come back stronger, despite not knowing why the team was experiencing issues during the race.
“Unfortunately, we don’t really understand what exactly the problem was, we had this massive drop at the end. Even for myself, I was not pushing that much. We will understand it for Silverstone, learn the mistakes from the weekend and come back stronger.”
The TRIDENT driver continued on to explain:
“We need to understand what happened, quickly, and then move on. There’s no logic in staying sad about today, we have plenty of races to go, so we can still go back for what we can do and have some good results.”
Reflecting on qualifying
The championship leader had his second-lowest starting position of the season in Austria, where he qualified seventh. His overall lowest starting position being eight in Monaco earlier this year. Despite this, the TRIDENT driver had a great launch off the line, which helped him fight his way through the field during the feature race. When reflecting on the qualifying session, Câmara expressed:
“I did the first push, then I did a small mistake in T1, so I decided to abort it and then after I went on the sausage kerb, and I started to feel like the rear left was an issue. But also from my side, I didn’t position myself well for the last push, so I started very close to another car. The lap I did was not bad, I was just alone, so we were missing the tow”
For me, I finished quali quite calm with the result, because here is a track where you can do plenty of overtakes. I just think we need to understand the race pace.”
Believes TRIDENT will be strong at Silverstone
The Brazilian driver appeared eager to move on from the weekend and look ahead to a brighter weekend at the British GP. Câmara expressed that the team always works to improve, stating:
“There are always some positive things. Without this maybe we wouldn’t have seen certain things to learn, but we are always working hard to see what we can do better and for sure there are positives.”
He continued on to explain that his current focus is on the next performance at Silverstone, where he believes the team will continue to be strong.
“From my side, I was quite happy with the race we did today, so we can be strong going forward. Also, in quali, it was just details, and some stuff that I can do better from my side, and with the team, we can see that and be strong for Silverstone.”
I think we are going to be strong for Silverstone, we have always been strong, so learn from the things we did this weekend and move on.”
Focus on the moment instead of the championship
The championship leader has had an impressive season so far, with three feature race wins. Perhaps his attitude, in addition to his talent, to remain focused on each race instead of the championship aids him in moving forward. The TRIDENT driver expressed that there is still a long way to go in the championship, and he is not focused on the big picture as yet. Câmara expressed:
“There are still eight races, four rounds, and plenty of points to play for. I think we have been strong, I think we just need to focus on our job and see where we can end up.”
I think I just need to focus on things that are in my control. I’ll try to go with the team and look what we can do better. I think if you are starting to think about the championship, you get to overthinking, so I just focus on the moment.”
Despite Spielberg not delivering what the TRIDENT driver hoped for, the twenty-year-old chose to focus on the positives of the weekend while remaining calm. Câmara hopes for Silverstone to be better than Round 6 in Austria was.
