Interview
Campos Jr admits 'surprise' at his team’s pace during Barcelona in-season test
Campos Racing caught the eye with a strong performance across the three days of testing in Barcelona, with not only their rivals noting their speed but also their Team Principal Adrián Campos Jr.
The Spanish squad set the fastest times on days two and three at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, even making it a clean sweep of both sessions on the second day.
Recently reflecting on the test, Campos Jr admitted he was surprised by the speed his team showed given that they were testing different setups and not chasing performance.
READ MORE: Boya fastest once again on final day of in-season test in Barcelona
“To be honest, we have also been surprised about the speed that we had,” he said. “We know that we are very strong, especially with these hard tyres and also at this circuit, but still, it is surprising for us.
“We were not looking for performance in every run, we were also trying different things and doing long runs, also saving some new sets of tyres for the long runs.
“So, this is why we have also been surprised because we were focusing more on testing items than performance. But it's always nice to do these kinds of tests and have everything working well from the first day to the end.”
When asked how much he was reading into the fact that they were constantly at, or near, the top of the timesheets throughout testing, Campos Jr responded: “Yes we are good, we are quick, I think we are going to be a contender in the next races but I don't take this as we are just going to dominate and we are one step ahead of anyone.
“I think that we just did a good job during testing, the drivers did good laps but maybe we were on new tyres at the right moment, with the right temperature on track and in the air.
“I am sure that everyone else will be pretty quick during the race weekends. We will probably be contenders for pole positions and the race win, but it won't be as easy as we saw in the test.”
Continuing to explain why he would not read too much into the leaderboard, Campos Jr revealed that quicker did not always mean better, especially as some of the items they evaluated on their cars improved their lap time but did not work as well as they had wanted.
But what he could tell from the test was how well his drivers Mari Boya, Oliver Goethe and Sebastián Montoya fared across the three days.
“I think Mari has made a step forward,” he revealed. “He is extremely quick and very confident; he is going to be a contender in the next races. Also, Ollie we were testing some different things on day two, this is probably why he was so far from Mari but on day three everything was more or less what he liked, and he was there, one-tenth from Mari. They were very close.
“The start of the season from Montoya has not been the one they or we expected, but he is getting there. The last round he had good pace during the races, and I am sure he is going to get to the level of his teammates very very soon.”
As for his confidence level heading into Imola for Round 3 and the rest of the season, Campos Jr says it has not been impacted by their performance in Barcelona, as he already had the belief that his team could be contenders for victories.
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“I have a lot of confidence with the results we can achieve in Formula 3,” he explained. “But we don't have more now that we have finished the test in Barcelona, we already had a lot of confidence before starting the season.
“We knew it was going to be a good one, we have a lot of potential, and the drivers can win races, this is what we expect from them. We don't expect more now because of the test, we have been quick, but we expected to be quick.”