‘Nothing is over yet’ – Tsolov calm on Championship hopes ahead of triple header

Nikola Tsolov says his and Campos Racing’s start to the season has not gone as well as they had expected, but that has not dampened his hopes when it comes to talk of the title.

The Bulgarian driver scored just three points at the opening weekend in Melbourne, but performed better in Sakhir, winning the Sprint Race before finishing fifth in the Feature.

This leaves Tsolov fifth in the Drivers’ Championship on 23 points, trailing leader Rafael Câmara by 33 as we head to Round 3 in Imola. But he is not too concerned by the deficit to the TRIDENT rookie just yet.

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“It's going quite well at the moment,” said Tsolov as he reviewed his season so far. “We haven't started where we expected to be so maybe it's a little bit worse.

“We thought Bahrain wasn't that great, in terms of what we could have done. So, to stand here being fifth in the Championship, not far away from second, obviously Rafa is pretty far up, but nothing is over yet.

“I think one race can change everything and thinking that we haven't been performing as expected now, but still being in the place we are, it says a lot. We only expect to be better and better each round.

“Clearly the main point that we have to focus on from now on is just working on the qualifying, where we have been lacking results. We saw that if we start up front we can fight for the win, in any race.

“Even in the Feature in Bahrain, I had an old tyre, started P8, finished fifth, pretty close to the podium. So, what could have been if I had been starting in the top five, around the others. Race pace is there, we just need to work on quali.”

Campos’ qualifying results were also lamented by Tsolov’s teammate Mari Boya after Bahrain. So, when asked why they had been struggling on a Friday, he said: “There are so many factors.

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“It can be traffic. Traffic can also mean you don't do the right tyre warmup, this affects the pressures, or your tyres become too hot, especially on weekends like Bahrain.

“Also, after having F1 driving before us, the track changes so much. It's definitely a lot easier to drive, everyone just gets closer to each other in the times as the track gets a lot of grip, but then you also have to change stuff from the car and adapt.

“There isn't one thing that keeps repeating itself, that would be bad on us, it's just different things affecting us. But we are clearly getting closer every time. In Australia we were 16th, Bahrain we were P8, that means another eight positions and we are where we want to be.

“Our target for Imola is to get top five in quali and then the weekend should be easy. For race pace, I wouldn't worry at the moment.”

Part of this has also been the fact that the drivers, especially the returnees, have been learning a new car. Tsolov acknowledges that for him it has been quite different to drive when compared to the previous generation.

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However, this has not bothered the 18-year-old too much, as the transition has felt quite natural for him. This, alongside Campos’ strong race pace, gives Tsolov a lot of confidence going forward, especially when the idea of catching Câmara in the Championship was raised.

“For sure being up front I could challenge him,” he said. “We have the data of all the race pace, quali pace and everything that has been going on. Even in Bahrain, on an old set of tyres, in the middle of the race when I had clean air, I was lapping a tenth quicker than him.

“This probably wouldn't be enough to overtake him, but it definitely could challenge him. It just takes one bad weekend from him and a good one from us to catch him.

“The gap might seem big now, 30 points, but a win in the Feature Race and a DNF is 25 points, and then you are already there. It's a long championship and it could be decided in the last round, it usually does.

“But I'm not really focused on changing that, I am taking it race by race and focusing on Imola.”

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Tsolov was speaking from the Campos factory where he had been preparing for Imola. The Red Bull junior says a good weekend on Italian soil will be key, so as to give him positive momentum going into Monte Carlo and Barcelona.

As he previewed the triple header though, he is confident that he and his team have enough to be at the top.

“Imola has been a difficult track for me, but I've only had one weekend there,” Tsolov said. “The first year they cancelled the race, so I didn't get to race there. My second year I was pretty quick, but I didn't do my last lap in quali because I got stuck in traffic, but I was fourth in FP.

“But definitely I have the pace. But I had the pace in Australia too and we saw what happened. We just have to keep it clean and I think if we are there, it's going to be fine.

“Monaco is a track where I have gained a lot of confidence. Last year for me was difficult because the last street race I did before Monaco was Macau and it wasn't a great weekend for me. So, I didn't have confidence.

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“I feel like I didn't qualify where I wanted to be, but I had the opportunity to start on pole in the Sprint. I gained confidence, I won the race, so I think it's a track that is going to be good for me this year, and I will try to give it my all in qualifying.

“Barcelona is a strong track for the team, a strong history for me there, last year I qualified third, which I thought wasn't great enough. But we've got a good three rounds ahead where we can gain a bit what we lost in the beginning.”