F3 - Post Qualifying Press Conference

Sport news FIA Formula 3: Hello and welcome to the press conference with the top three qualifiers for Race 1 of this weekend's FIA Formula 3 Championship round at Silverstone. We are joined by polesitter Logan Sargeant for PREMA Racing, in second place is Liam Lawson for Hitech Grand Prix, and third is Jake Hughes for HWA RACELAB. Logan, congratulations, your second, consecutive pole position here. You must like this place?
Logan Sargeant: Yeah, it feels really good. I just have a good connection with the track and the car, and I was able to put together a good lap today. In the end, after the red flag, we only had an out-push. It made life pretty difficult, knowing that that was the lap. Fortunately, I had a good feeling with the balance of the car, and I was able to deliver on that one lap.
FIA Formula 3: Speaking about that red flag delay... The fact that you were in a good rhythm, did that make things harder, or did it give you confidence that you were best placed to take advantage?
Logan: I don't think it really changed my mindset. I knew either way that I was going to have to put a lap together and deliver. I just stayed in the same mindset, stayed relaxed and that was that.
FIA Formula 3: Congratulations, well done. Liam, P2 again. I could have used the questions from last weekend's press conference with you two first and second! You were happy then, are you happy again today?
Liam Lawson: I would say that we want to be on pole position. P2 again is a good result, but it's not pole. There's definitely some work to do. Last week we had a stronger balance. There was a slightly different track temperature today, and we just missed the window a little bit. There are some things to work on, but for the race tomorrow hopefully we can have a good start. The idea is obviously to try and repeat what we did last week, but in that race last week our race pace struggled towards the end. There are things to look at, but hopefully we can have another good weekend with some good points, because we need it.
FIA Formula 3: You mentioned last week. Racing at the same circuit, and starting from the same position - does that help, knowing how that race panned out, or is it going to be a different situation this weekend do you think?
Liam: I think every race is always different. You can never really predict what's going to happen, and you can never really plan out what you're going to do. It all depends on how the start goes, and from there, we'll see.
FIA Formula 3: Good luck for tomorrow. Jake, moving on to you. Your best qualifying performance of the season so far. Where did you find the gains compared to last weekend?
Jake Hughes: If I told you that I don't think the team would be very happy with me! Credit to them first and foremost. We've done a lot of work. I think it's the first time in championship history where we've had back-to-backs at the same track and the same tyre compound. It was an opportunity to learn, and I think we did that. We had a much stronger car already from Free Practice today. I'm not sure where everyone else was on track during the red flag, but we were a bit unfortunate where we got the flag literally at Turn 18. We'd done the push lap already, but it didn't get counted. I don't know how that affected us, with it obviously being out-push for everybody. Nevertheless, the car balance felt good. I don't think we would have been able to challenge Logan for pole today, but compared to where we've been it's a big improvement.
FIA Formula 3: You finished fourth in Race 1 last weekend, showing that the race pace is there, but is Qualifying something you've highlighted as maybe crucial to trying to get better results?
Jake: Yeah for sure. In this championship, if you're starting near the front it helps your tyre wear quite a lot. The dirty air is really punishing with these tyres. We've made life more difficult for ourselves than we would have liked so far this year. Our race pace, in general, has been better than our one lap pace so far. Obviously now we're starting on the front of Row 2, hopefully it should be a bit better for us.
FIA Formula 3: Thank you very much. Logan, just returning to you. Obviously, you started pole last weekend, but slipped back to third place in that race. What have you been able to learn from last weekend that hopefully you can apply tomorrow?
Logan: I'm going to keep those tactics to myself! I definitely learned a fair few lessons, especially in Race 1, and came back in Race 2 with very good race pace. Especially from Lap 4 onward. I think tomorrow, as long as I'm switched on early, and I use what I've learned, we can aim for a good result. FIA Formula 3 Championship
Formula 3 F3 SEASON 2020 Sport Circuit 1SportFIA Formula 3 ChampionshipCircuitF3SEASON 2020Formula 300 Friday, August 7, 2020 - 9:14pm Friday, August 7, 2020 - 9:14pm