Round 4 Thoughts from the top 3

FIA Formula 3: Noah Stromstad, winner of the Feature Race here at the Red Bull Ring in beautiful fashion. How was the race from the car?

Noah Stromsted: Yeah, the car was very good. I struggled a bit in the start, I lost a few positions and in the restart of the virtual safety car. And from there I was just trying to stay in the train and save my tyres as much as possible to go for it in the end.

FIA Formula 3: How pleasing is it to be fighting at the front again this weekend after maybe a more challenging round last weekend at Barcelona?

Stromsted: Yeah, it was very nice finally to fight in the front again. I mean, we've always had good race pace this season, we've just been struggling a bit in the qualifying. To get this weekend and get the win here is very important for me to get the season started.

FIA Formula 3: Going back to the race today, it was all about managing the tyres and maybe a little bit of the waiting game for you because you remained within striking distance and then you made your move towards the end of the race.

Stromsted: Yeah, it was a bit boring at some points, just waiting behind. But I mean, sometimes you just need to stay calm and save your tyres. That's how it is in F3 and that's what we did.

FIA Fomrula 3: With that extra boost going into Silverstone next week, what can we expect from you then?

Stromsted: We'll just try to do the same again, qualify well inside the top 10 and go for it in the races.

FIA Formula 3: Well, congratulations. Ugo to you, P2 on the starting grid, P2 at the flag, but that doesn't tell the story of the race. It was quite an exciting one. You were the leader of the race for a moment there, fighting with Slater. How was it from the car? Because it was fun to watch, but was it fun to drive?

Ugo Ugochukwu: Yeah, it was definitely a crazy race. Crazy battles throughout the whole race, really. Yeah, being in the lead and feeling I wasn't super quick was obviously not so fun. But I felt my pace started to improve again in the middle of the race when I was able to get back into the lead. But, obviously, really difficult with the three DRS zones back-to-back. So, yeah, I fell back to P3 at the end. I think, probably, if we had a little bit better pace at the start, it would have been a bit easier to manage the tyres. But, all in all, I think it was a really positive race. P2 is, again, good points, so we take it.

FIA Formula 3: We saw some pretty rough race would you say in that battle with Slater. How much do you think you can push and how much did you have to hold back to make sure it doesn't end up in tears?

Ugochukwu: I think, in the back of your mind, you always want to finish the race to pick up points for the championship. So, yeah, Freddie was quite aggressive. I tried to avoid a crash on the outside of some corners. But I mean, it didn't do any damage to the race. Well, a little bit of damage, but, yeah, it didn't really affect the race.

FIA Formula 3: You leave the Red Bull Ring still leading in the Drivers' Championship. That must be really boosting your confidence going into Silverstone next week. Are you looking forward to that next round there?

Ugochukwu: Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to Silverstone. It’s one of my favourite tracks, for sure, on the calendar. Really good quality result last year. So we'll see, try to hit the ground running again.

FIA Formula 3: See you in Silverstone. Thank you. Freddie Slater, third at the flag from fifth on the grid and also it looked like you could have had your first F3 win today. It wasn't meant to be, how was it from the car?

Freddie Slater: I think obviously for me starting fifth, tiny bit further back, I think it was very important to get through and get out the chaos as soon as possible really, which we did and I was leading for quite a long time. As we know the DRS is very powerful around here and it just didn't quite go to plan. Obviously yesterday probably lost a little bit of knowledge on what the tyres were going to do and that's how it goes sometimes and I think we did a really good job as a team to maximise the result. Obviously congrats to Noah as well, it’s great for the team, now we look forward to the next one.

FIA Formula 3: You're saying that you missed some data from yesterday about how the tyres would behave, but were you expecting that much degradation towards the final stages at least?

Slater: It's hard to say because I think if yesterday I would have seen what would have happened then I probably would have managed a bit more maybe in a different area, but today that was the plan to try and feel what was underneath me and I tried to do that the best way possible. Towards the end I just started to struggle a little bit and also had a few, weird issues going on in the low speed corners with the power, so I need to look into this on the last couple of laps. So yeah, I think a few things that could have gone a little bit better of course and probably could have meant we would have won.

FIA Formula 3: Looking past the frustration of not getting your first win here this weekend, still it feels like you're improving round by round and you feel more and more comfortable and you understand better the car and how the championship works?

Slater: Yeah, I hope so, I hope next week means a win on Sunday, but I think it's been good progress throughout the year and I think I'm just learning more and more how the races work out and how the tyres evolve throughout the race and kind of the race strategy, how you play it, is completely different to what I've driven before, so obviously it's new for me this year, but it's been a good learning curve, a steep learning curve for sure, it's completely different.

FIA Formula 3: Thank you very much, good job this weekend, see you at home.