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Senna focused on handling pressure

Bruno Senna says he wants to stay at Renault © Sutton Images

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Bruno Senna says he has to remind himself how few races he has driven in this season in order to deal with the pressure on him to deliver performances.

Senna replaced Nick Heidfeld from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards, and while he has impressed in qualifying he has only scored two points in the five races since. Senna admits that there is pressure on him to improve quickly if he wants a seat for 2012, but that he has to stop putting too high expectations on himself because he has much less experience than the other drivers on the grid.

"There is always more pressure the further you go in to the season to have results because in theory you should be always getting better and better and better," Senna said. "But I need to be quite careful with that, because even I had forgotten last weekend that it was only my fifth race. I'm competing against guys who have done 17 races in the same space of time, and if I don't give myself a break sometimes by having a few difficulties - and there will be difficulties all the time - then I might struggle with my head.

"So pressure is there, I want to go better and better every race, but sometimes like last weekend we had a difficult situation and it put me in a bad position. So there's not too much point in dwelling too much over it, and try to learn from the mistakes. I want to do well for these last few races are going to be important for sure, but make sure that I keep my mind in the right place considering I'm not quite there with the other guys yet."

With Robert Kubica's future in Formula One uncertain, there could be an opening for Senna to remain with Renault next season, and he said he hopes he can stay.

"Unfortunately if you don't have a contract signed there's no guarantee of having a place anywhere, but I think I've done a good few favours for myself in terms of performance - especially qualifying performance - lately, and it puts everything in a better position for the confidence that other people could give me. I'd love to stay here, I've been learning with these guys a lot, so if I can stay here and we can get the right package and Robert can't come back then hopefully I'll be able to."

Senna also said leaving a decision to the last minute on a driver line-up would not be a good move by Renault.

"I don't think it's a good idea, it's happened in the past and it went in a bad way."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.