Q&A with Vitaly Petrov

Vitaly Petrov looks forward to Silverstone, a track he has some good memories of following his GP2 victory in 2006.

Have you had a chance to sit down after Valencia to analyse the race?

Yes, of course. I spoke with my engineers back at the factory to understand the race. What happened at the start was my doing – I touched the paddle on the steering wheel which is very sensitive and was in second gear when the lights went off. Obviously this shouldn’t happen again so we made the necessary change on the steering wheel to avoid this in the future. We saw quite a few teams performing well in Valencia around us. In a certain way, it reinforced the fact that we must keep on pushing to develop the car and work hard.

Silverstone is a classic venue and the team’s home race. Do you enjoy racing there?

Silverstone is an interesting track and it has a new pitlane which we will use for the first time. The circuit has good high speed corners, and it’s the first GP of the season where we’ll have high speed corners like these, so we’ll have to see how the tyres will behave. I have good memories of Silverstone; I won there in GP2 in 2006 so it always makes it enjoyable to come back to a track where I’ve done well in the past. The typical British weather also means that rain or sunshine will be pretty unpredictable – but that makes the charm of Silverstone!

What type of set up does the circuit require?

We will take the baseline set up we had at Silverstone last year and build on that. Of course, we will have to take the tyres into account. The first sector is quite high speed that requires one type of set up but the car would almost need a different set up for the second and third sectors with slower corners were more traction is required. Basically the car will need to respond to the different demands of the circuit. As usual we will make the most of the free practice sessions to get ready for the race.

What objectives do you set yourself for the British Grand Prix?

We need to concentrate on making fewer mistakes and to try to continue to work hard to improve our performance and our strategies. Of course, as it is our home Grand Prix and I would love us to have a good result but we have to work towards giving ourselves the best chances to do so.