Interview
Wisnicki targeting more points with Rodin after P5 in Silverstone Feature Race
Piotr Wisnicki called it a “great feeling” to score his first Formula 3 points at the Silverstone Feature Race, but the Rodin Motorsport driver is targeting more before the season’s end.
Wisnicki and his teammate Callum Voisin’s bold choice to stick with the Hards prior to the Formation Lap as rain fell proved to be the correct one as they came through the field early on.
However, during the second Safety Car period, the rain started to come back causing that the two drivers to fall back through the field. Voisin went from the lead to P20 while Wisnicki dropped from seventh to 24th.
WHAT WE LEARNED: The key takeaways from Round 7 at Silverstone
But the track improved late on allowing the pair to go back up the order with Voisin finishing P1 – before a 10-second penalty demoted him to third – while Wisnicki ended up in P5.
It was the Polish driver’s first points-scoring return and speaking afterwards, he reflected on what had been a “crazy race.”
“To be honest we made a good choice at the beginning,” he said. “But through the Safety Cars I was like 'No it's going to rain' and thought we were in trouble because then we started slowing down, but then we were fast again.
“To be honest it was like from like hell to heaven and then heaven to hell and then back again. It was a crazy race.”
Explaining the decision to stay with the Hard tyres at the start, Wisnicki said that it was more of a surprise to him, and his race engineer that the others chose the wets.
“To be honest I was wondering why they were changing the tyres,” he revealed. “I asked my engineer, ‘Is it raining that much?’, and he said, ‘No it's not raining that much’ and I said, ‘So why are they changing their tyres’ and he said, ‘They are gambling.’”
“So, it was like okay but it's not really raining, and I was like okay we are staying on slicks, but I thought the Safety Car would make the slicks difficult. From the beginning I was like we are staying on slicks, we are not changing to the wets.”
Talking through his emotions across the line, Wisnicki admitted he was more delighted about the team’s total points from the race than his own personal score, even if he did not know about Voisin’s penalty.
“At the beginning I was shouting like 35 points are coming home, then they told me 25 and I was like what,” revealed Wisnicki.
“To be honest it's a great feeling but we will see at the Hungaroring what's going to happen. We are not focusing only on Silverstone anymore; we want more points.”
Previewing Round 8 in Budapest, Wisnicki said: “The Hungaroring is going to be my home Grand Prix. It's not my home grand prix but it's not far away driving from my home, so we will see, but I have no idea how we will perform there.”