Trending in the right direction: Campos Racing Pre-Season Round-Up

Campos Racing are feeling confident ahead of Round 1 after a productive first run out with the new Formula 3 car at pre-season testing, this according to their Team Principal, Adrián Campos Jr.

The Spanish outfit were the busiest team at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, completing 700 laps across the three days, with the help of their drivers Mari Boya, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Nikola Tsolov.

For Campos Jr, the test went exactly as they envisioned, with his team able to go through their run plan, even if the final day was affected by rain.

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“Testing was quite productive,” said Campos Jr. “So, I am quite happy with all the development that we did, all the test items that we had planned, we did almost all of them.

“We had the bad luck of rain on the third day, but it was the same for everyone, so I feel confident for the upcoming rounds.”

The new F3 car means that each team has had to start from scratch. So, with each lap, every member of the grid would have improved their understanding of not just the new machinery, but also the 16-inch tyres.

So, Campos’ high mileage means they would have collected a lot of data, which is huge positive because, as their team boss explains, everything on the car is new.

“It's very different,” he explained. “We have the same engine, it's the only thing we have the same, everything is different. We have more downforce, we have a different gearbox, so it's a really different car.

“We need to have a new mentality for this new car, which is what we did, and I think we are heading in the right direction.”

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In terms of performance, the full picture is still not known, but from what he has seen from his drivers, Campos Jr is very happy.

Tsolov, whose 261 laps in testing were the most of any driver, was in good form, finishing in the top 10 in every session apart from the final afternoon of the test.

Included in that was Tsolov’s sweep of both the morning and afternoon segments on Day 2, the Bulgarian driver’s 1:26.618 in the opening three hours the fastest time of the week.

On top of that, his teammates Boya and Inthraphuvasak also found themselves with times that put them near the top of the timesheets, especially on Day 3 where they set to fourth and fifth fastest laps.

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Assessing the performance of his drivers, Campos Jr said: “They were very good. I think we should point out Nikola's performance because I think it was quite good.

“He really adapted to the new car very well, and the other two were also in the front spots. But Nikola was surprisingly quick in dry conditions, and also in the wet in the morning, so very happy with the performance of all three.”

Campos have finished fourth in each of the last two seasons and with the same points total in both campaigns, 179.

The goal will be to climb up the order and based on what he has seen so far from his team, Campos Jr is confident that they can hit the ground running in Melbourne next week.

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“I am very confident because we were able to test all the things that we wanted to test during these days,” he concluded.

“They were quite positive, most of them, so as I said I am feeling quite confident. Let’s see if we can improve even more going forward, but I think we are going in the right direction, so I am very confident.”