• Sam Bird's GP2 column

'I'm driving better than a sixth-place driver'

July 14, 2010

It was a bit of a mixed weekend at Silverstone, but I really enjoyed driving in front of my home fans on the new circuit. The feature race went well; I started fifth, got a good start to get up to fourth at the first corner and then stayed there for the remaining 31 laps of the race. The car felt quite physical through all the high-speed corners and especially over the bumps, but I was well prepared for that and I feel like I drove a good race.

Towards the end I was challenging for third place but couldn't quite get there. I caught Dani Clos by quite a few seconds in a short period of time, but unfortunately it wasn't to be and I couldn't find a way past. Nevertheless, five points was a decent haul for Saturday, it was just unfortunate it didn't go quite so well in Sunday's sprint race.

Basically, before every race my team gets me to check the car during a warm-up lap, drive back through the pit lane and then head to the grid on another reconnaissance lap. So as I was driving through the pits they asked me if everything was OK and I replied "yep, it feels absolutely fine," and told them I was going to push a bit harder on the next lap, as per our usual pre-race procedure, so that I could get a feel for the balance with heavy fuel and then make any adjustments on the grid if necessary.

I drove out of the pit lane, went through Maggots and Becketts and started to go up the Hanger straight at full throttle when my engine died. We had a look at it back in the paddock and found a big hole in the side of the engine where a component had failed and pushed through the block. Sadly for me it spelt the end of my race before it had even started.

It's hugely disappointing because I was well placed at my home grand prix and I wanted to get a podium in front of the huge crowds. I got very close on Saturday and I felt that I had a brilliant chance on Sunday but, not for the first time this season, I was let down by a failure of some sort.

It's not my team's fault and I know that everybody at ART is working their hardest - GP2 is usually a very fair championship. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that I've been on the bad end of mechanical failures at the last couple of races when I've been in a strong position. Points are slipping away from us at the moment and I feel that we could be second or third in the championship and not too far behind Pastor Maldonado if we had a bit more luck. I'm sixth in the standings now but I feel like I'm driving better than a sixth-place driver.

But I know my luck will turn round and I'm hoping it will start at Hockenheim. It's one of my favourite circuits on the calendar and I took a pole position there in Formula 3 so I'm hoping for more of the same in GP2. It will be the first of two back-to-back races and, as usual, I'll put loads of effort in to prepare myself mentally and physically. It helps that I know I've got the speed to be on the podium at both races, it's just a matter of waiting for things to go my way. To be honest I wish all races were back-to-back and I could spend as much time in the car as possible.

It's also a lot of fun to be in the paddock and around the other drivers. We all get on really well and have a joke and a laugh, which makes for a really good atmosphere. A lot of the guys like playing football so we'll sometimes have a match at the race tracks between sessions to relax. We've all grown up together through the junior formulas and I know a lot of them quite well from F3, Formula BMW and Formula Renault.

Having said that, when you put the helmet on it's a different matter and you want to beat all the other drivers no matter who they are. We are all trying to get to the F1 paddock and everyone knows that. We show respect to each other but that doesn't stop us racing as hard as we can.

On a slightly different note, I have seen some pictures of the new GP2 car for 2011 and I've also heard that its performance figures are very strong. They've made it look a lot more like a Formula One car, with a narrower and higher rear wing and a much wider front wing. That's a good thing for the series and its sponsors, because it means the public associate us with being the junior Formula One category.

If I get a chance to drive it I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, but that all depends on which paddock I'm in next year because the aim is still to make it into F1. So I'm looking forward to getting a closer look at it, but if I don't end up driving it, it should be for a very good reason.

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