MIM driver tells about his experience as he shared all Campos Racing’s activities during race weekend
The recent Formula 2 weekend in Monaco had a very special observer. Fresh off the back of his maiden F3 win in Barcelona, Monaco Increase driver David Vidales attended the event from the Campos Racing pitwall, sharing all team activities with the drivers, the engineers and the management and making a ‘free’ weekend an opportunity for learning even more about professional racing. F3’s official website collected his impressions in a nice interview of which we’re glad to publish some excerpts:
“I’ve been living in Monaco for about one month now”, explains the 20-years old from Leòn, Spain “because Monaco Increase Management is also based there and I wanted to be as close as possible to the people who have been supporting my career. As for Campos, they’ve been part of my racing experience since I was a kid, they’re like family to me. So I thought it was a great opportunity to be there and learn as much as possible being with the team, learning from the F2 drivers and the engineers”.
And in the Campos garage, Vidales was a more than welcome guest: “They were happy for me to be there because I’m in F3 (with them) and they want me to become a better driver. Just the fact of being in Monaco – it’s amazing and an incredible experience to be with the team in the pit lane. As a driver, you’re always on track with your helmet on and you don’t really see all the work that is going on behind, all the passion that the team is putting in. So, when you see that passion at the start, when there’s overtaking and how they follow the race – next time I’m driving, I’ll think about it and this will help me push more!”
“So, I did everything with them as if I was one of their drivers – following the track walk, all the team meetings and what they were saying on the radio and the feedback they gave. You can learn the way these drivers with more experience give feedback and how they speak with the engineers. I did everything I could to be involved with the team and had four amazing days together.”
“Technically the brakes are very different to F3, which was a new thing for me, the way they use the brakes and all the things they can do with them. Also, the tyres – having different compounds on the same weekend. There were a lot of things to learn from (such as) the pit stops and race management. It’s always four wheels and one steering wheel, but many things are different and you need to learn a lot. That’s why experienced drivers can make a difference because they know how to manage all these things at once.”
And since racing is not only about driving, Vidales took the chance to further improve his skills in giving as accurate a feedback as possible to the people working with him: “Personally, I’m not a driver that speaks a lot on the radio. I try to focus on what I can do. The engineers are very helpful and they can follow the sector data from the pit wall, but in the end, you’re the one driving so they can’t do anything about what’s happening in the car. Seeing how the drivers give the feedback after the sessions and all the experience I had over the weekend is making me a better driver, which is what I want to do every day to improve”.
