Vergne: I’ve learned a lot about being a F1 driver

Jean-Eric Vergne has been on a steep learning curve during his debut F1 season. The Frenchman tells us about the lessons he has picked up along the way...

It’s been a few days now but it’s still hard to believe that the season is over. It’s been such a marathon, and you get so used to the fact that there’s always another race on the horizon, that it feels a little strange to know it’s done and dusted and that the next time we’ll hit the track in anger will be in Melbourne next year.

My final race of the 2012 season was about as eventful a race as I’ve ever had! My start wasn’t great and I lost a lot of positions because I went a little wide to avoid the accident involving Seb. After that, the yellow flags stayed out for a while so I lost more time there and obviously wasn’t able to overtake anyone.

Once the flags cleared, I was able to pass a few guys – I overtook Daniel and a couple of others – but the conditions were getting worse and a lot of people decided to pit for intermediate tyres. I decided to stay out on slicks but in the end the pace just wasn’t there on those tyres, so I had to pit. However, it was just my luck that when I pitted the track started to dry again, so I lost a ton of time, a whole lap.

Then the safety car came out and I was able to unlap myself. I ended up behind Timo and there I made a bit of a mistake. Just before the re-start, I tried to be a bit clever and leave some room to the guys ahead and accelerate really early to get a good exit. But nobody accelerated where I expected them to! In fact, people were braking when I was already going at high speed so I hit Timo, which wasn’t good. Obviously, I had to make another stop after that to take on a new front wing, so I lost a lot of time there as well.

After that, though, the pace was fantastic. I was on the hard tyre and it felt really, really good. I think I was 18th or 19th and I made it up to something like 11th by the time the rain started to fall again, this time pretty heavily.

During that period I think we made a small mistake in pitting a little bit late for more intermediate tyres. Despite that, though, eighth place was a really good result from where I was half way through the race. I think maybe seventh was possible – if we had pitted a little bit earlier for the tyres in the closing laps. In the end, though, we did a really good job to stay on track and to come back from the position I was in to get some points.

It was nice to sign off the season with another four points. I wasn’t too excited about the result immediately after the race, as you always want more and I do think seventh was possible, but with a bit of time to reflect on the result, it was nice for both me and the team to finish the last race in the points. It feels like positive way to end 2012.

I had four eighth places during the year and scored 16 points. For my first year in Formula One, and given that we didn’t have the best car in the world, I don’t feel too bad about that record. For sure, it could have been better and I certainly expect better of myself next year, but all in all I’d mark it down as a successful first season.

Ultimately, I think this year was all about learning and the points are not the most significant thing. The important thing for me is that I think I have learned a hell of a lot about Formula One this year.

First, there’s obviously the whole process of driving the car, learning how to work properly with the team and learning how to race in F1, all of that has been a massive learning curve and at times it has been pretty hard, especially when the results weren’t coming and we seemed to be going backwards.

But that’s where the second lesson comes into play. At the end of my first season I think I’ve learned a lot about being a Formula One driver out of the car as well as in it. Driving the car is obviously the sharp end of what we do and the most crucial part of the job, but it wouldn’t work if, as a driver, you didn’t learn how to work with your engineers, if you didn’t learn how to process all the information you get given and help everyone in the team arrive at the best solution for the circumstances you’re in.

There’s always an element of that in every series but in Formula One it’s so much more involved and so much more intense and you have to raise your game and manage that well. I think I did quite well this year in those terms but I’ll hopefully come back even better next year.

All I want now over the winter is to put all I’ve learned together and arrive back next year with, hopefully, a better car, more experience, more skill and hopefully I’ll have an even better experience next year.

For now, though, that’s it for this season. I don’t know what I’m going to get up to over the next month or so, there’s nothing really planned yet. I know I have two or three weeks scheduled for training in January in the mountains, but as for the rest, well, I want to go somewhere hot and sunny and maybe get away from Formula One for a little while – not for too long, just long enough to recharge the batteries and come back next year ready to do it all again.