Nikola Tsolov secured his third pole position this season during qualifying for the F3 British GP.
After a tight qualifying session, the Red Bull Junior once again managed to come out on top. Qualifying ahead of his championship rivals gives him an advantage in the feature race on Sunday. The edge would be especially needed when the gap between the top three is only 28 points. With Tsolov in third place behind Tramnitz in second, and Câmara leading the championship.
Tsolov “not really impressed” with his qualifying lap
The Bulgarian took pole with a great lap of 1:45.043 seconds around Silverstone, 0.023s quicker than the second place finisher. With Ugochukwu and Câmara closely behind, the Red Bull junior still managed to secure his place on pole. This makes it back-to-back pole positions for the young driver.
When asked about how good his final lap in qualifying was, Tsolov expressed that he was not satisfied with his lap.
“It’s quite funny, I was not really impressed with my lap, I didn’t think it was fantastic. I saw Rafa’s time on the second set, which I got safety mode in, so I couldn’t do it. I wanted to really push hard, did a few mistakes, but overall I think we’ve had the pace since practice, so it was enough to do pole.”
The Campos driver has had an impressive and consistent season so far, showing his potential. Although he was not impressed with his lap in qualifying, it proved to be enough to secure pole position.
Bounced back after disqualification in Austria
The Campos Racing driver claimed victory at the Austrian GP. However, after the feature race, he was disqualified for failing to follow the technical regulations. The plank on his car was below the minimum thickness required by the FIA by 0.3 mm. Despite this setback, the young talent had a wonderful start to this weekend, topping both the practice session and qualifying.
When asked about the disqualification in Austria and being able to have a turnaround this weekend, the Bulgarian candidly expressed:
“It feels good to bounce back and not be too affected from that. Obviously it was a tough couple of days. I felt numb emotionally because I had such a high, and then it went down all at one go, so it was difficult. Feels good to bounce back, like I’ve been saying nothing is over. One less round to go, but still four rounds, so we can still recover a few points.”
He continued on to explain his progress through the season, as he was asked about his performance on track.
“Yeah, I think I’ve been improving and showing progress every round, and it’s only been getting better, so this has been key for me. Obviously, thinking about the future as well, trying to be ready for the next step and perform on the level I need to be in case of a step-up, so I’m quite happy with myself. Honestly, in Spielberg I don’t think I did one mistake the whole weekend, you don’t get many of those. Unfortunately, it was taken away, but I hope to repeat it again.”
Approach to qualifying
The Red Bull junior did have a pretty flawless weekend in Austria until the news of the disqualification hit. Regardless of the result, the young driver should be impressed with his performance. Perhaps even use it to come back even stronger this weekend.
Additionally, the driver was asked about the Aramco pole position trophy.
“Yeah, it’s good to get an award for pole. Thankfully, my first one was when we already started getting the award, so I should have three now. It’s nice. One more trophy at home to stay, so you can tell your friends about it, and I’m happy.”
When asked if he did anything different in his approach to qualifying in Silverstone. The Campos driver expressed that he went about it the same way he usually does.
“No, I mean, it was three set quali seemed to be the best option to be on. I kind of knew it before coming into the weekend. It’s yeah, one lap shooter on each set. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do my second set properly, so that put me off a little bit. Just like in Bahrain, Barcelona, and a couple of other qualis we do three sets, so nothing new in my approach.” Tsolov explained.
Considering that all the pole positions have been shared between Tsolov and Câmara so far this season, the question of if they look at each other first on the timing screens when fighting in qualifying came up. Even though the fight is tight, the Campos driver keeps his focus on himself.
“You do your thing and then see where you end up finally, and then see where the other one ends up. It’s important to be ahead, but, consistency is the most important thing in the end.”
Building a strong momentum
Additionally, the Campos driver was asked how wet conditions could shake up the field. As well as, if he had a preference for certain conditions in the races. The 18-year-old expressed that the preferences sometimes depend on the race. He stated:
“I don’t really mind too much. In the sprint, probably looking at our race pace would be better to be dry, just because when it’s full wet you can’t really see anything so making up places is pretty difficult. For example, in Australia, there were not many overtakes, not many racing laps as well. I would rather have one condition or the other, because the last two years it’s been wet, dry, wet, dry, so it’s kind of a gamble. With luck, you never know. I’d rather it just is a clean race in one of the two conditions.”
The Red Bull junior has been incredible this season, in both races and qualifying sessions. When asked about the key to build a strong momentum over qualifying performances, he explained:
“Obviously, coming to Monaco we had a good weekend there, good quali. I think that just kind of set the rhythm. We found something on the warm-up since last set in Barcelona until now, which has been helping us a lot. Seems like we were not switching the tyres on properly. They felt quite sensitive compared to last year, so for me, this is the thing. You do it once, and then it just gets easier, or you get better at it. I look at it that way that once you’re up there, it’s easier to keep the momentum than trying to chase for your first pole position.”
Track limit violations around Silverstone
As track limits were prevalent across all formula categories on Friday, the question of whether penalties could play a role in the outcomes this weekend was asked. The Campos driver explained whether it was difficult staying within the white lines of the track, stating:
“I didn’t struggle too much with the track limit penalties. I actually didn’t even do one the whole day. It’s obviously quite easy to go off, mostly in Turn 9, if you try to push to the limit. So it’s one place, but I think you know when you’re off. The thing is, you start bottoming on the kerb, and you can’t really not do a track limit, and that’s the issue.
I think since last year, where they put this new system with the white lines and stuff, you know when you do a track limit. So you’re either in the gravel or you’re out of track, and I think it’s quite useful. I mean, I wouldn’t expect to see penalties in the race due to track limits, except if you just go off a lot of times or get pushed off a lot of times.”
Furthermore, he was asked if he avoided track limit violations due to his experience around the Silverstone circuit.
“Yeah, I have two years of racing here, so I knew the track from before and I knew where you can go off, but I don’t think it’s one of them tracks that you get penalties for it or there is so much track limits. It’s not like Red Bull Ring as it used to be a lot of going off and stuff like that. I think it should be generally clean with track limits and definitely not going to be a big topic this weekend.”
Keeping the tyres alive
A part of being a racing driver is knowing how to properly manage your tyres in all sorts of conditions. This especially includes tracks and conditions that would lead to higher tyre degradation.
Lastly, the question of the difficultly of keeping the tyres alive, especially in high speed areas of the circuit was asked. The Red Bull junior offered his insight into tyre management, expressing:
“It’ll be tough. I remember last year I was expecting small deg, the sprint race was dry. So yeah, we could use some knowledge there, and it was much more than expected and started to get tough in the end of the race. It should be similar to Austria or a tiny bit less.“
“Obviously, with the high speed corners, you kind of grain the tyres a little bit more than usual. It will be tough to save because you still need to push them. Especially, Maggotts and Becketts [Turns 10-14], if you get a bad exit you could get passed, so it will be tricky. Hopefully, the sprint race will be dry to have some learning.”
The Silverstone circuit can be challenging for the drivers, especially when the fastest turns such as Maggotts (Turn 10) requires them to approach at immensely high speed. Luckily, the Red Bull junior is quite familiar with the track and will do everything to show it is an advantage to be familiar here.
