Goethe aiming to extend points streak to enter title contention in Spielberg

27 June 2024

Consistency can make a driver’s season and for Oliver Goethe, 2024 has been an exemplary showing. The Campos Racing driver is the only member of the grid to have scored a point in every race so far in 2024, a run of form he is aiming to extend at Round 6 in Spielberg this weekend.

The Red Bull Junior Team prospect has been a fixture in the points at every round and sees no reason for that to change after the Spanish squad’s form on home soil in Barcelona last weekend.

“I feel good,” Goethe explained in Spielberg ahead of the weekend. “The past few rounds have been really good, especially in Imola and Barcelona, they were definitely my standouts and I’ll be looking to continue that momentum.

“I feel good with the team and with the car as well. Qualifying will be the most important factor, especially around this track. With so few corners, it’s all about the details and it’s going to be very fine margins on Friday just like it was in Barcelona.

“The goal is to qualify in the right half of the top 10 and then to get some solid points, especially in the Feature Race on Sunday.”

While he has been in the points at every race so far in 2024, Goethe’s acknowledgement that he has stepped up on return to more familiar tracks in Europe is evidence he can feel the momentum growing behind him.

Goethe was on the podium once again in Barcelona, earning third in the Sprint Race last time out

Though he may have liked to score bigger points earlier in the year, the Campos driver says any time is as good as any to pick up some positive results.

“Any time is a good time to be in good form, but now with quite a few rounds coming up, it’s basically half the Championship within six weeks, so if you’re in good form now, happy and feeling confident that everything’s going well, that’s a massive confidence boost.”

With his focus turned to the task at hand in Spielberg, Goethe says that he is eager to maximise his efforts on Friday in Qualifying to make his life easier on Saturday and Sunday. It’s a top 10 start at the sharp end of the grid the Red Bull junior is after, as he seeks to earn his first Feature Race victory of 2024.

“It has been really fine margins this year. In other rounds like the first couple for example in Bahrain and Melbourne, we didn’t maximise Qualifying which was the main thing. We just didn’t really have the car in the right window.

“But since then, on European tracks, I’ve been more confident to be honest and I feel like the team has been more confident as well. Monaco was a bit of an exception, just missed out on the reverse grid positions so that weekend wasn’t as strong as we’d have liked.

“Now with the European rounds coming one after the other, I feel really confident, the team has done a really good job in the last couple of races also, so we just have to carry on like this.”

The Red Bull junior is targeting big points to move himself into serious title contention

That will be no easy task however, with the Red Bull Ring’s short layout making for a tightly contested Qualifying. Last season, ART Grand Prix’s Grégoire Saucy earned Pole Position by 0.004s over Dino Beganovic.

Goethe says he expects similar margins come Qualifying that could potentially make or break a promising race.

Currently sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, Goethe sits just two points back from breaking into the top five and 10 points from third position, a total he could well overcome with another strong showing this weekend.

“Last year I think I was P8 and only one and a half tenths from pole, so it’s really tight here. In the races, the level of degradation is quite high, so tyre management comes into play. And then of course you have three DRS zones, so you can definitely make up a lot of ground.

“If you qualify further up the order though, you can get a massive advantage, especially if you want the big points in the Feature Race and fight for the podium positions.

“That’s what you need to do to fight for the Championship. I got some good points in Barcelona and hopefully I’ll be able to get some big points here too.”