Photo: Diederik van der Laan / DPPA
Maya Weug continued her recent impressive Formula Regional European Championship form with two points finishes at Paul Ricard.
She has scored in five of the last six races, only missing out when her fire extinguisher went off mid-race at Mugello, and has returned her team KIC Motorsport to the points for the first time since 2021.
Having struggled to get into the top 20 in qualifying at the start of the season, in the last three rounds Weug has started from the third row twice, and only once failed to make the first six rows in a 33-car field.
“It’s really good that we’re consistent. That helps a lot,” she says. “Now we need to find that little bit more to make the step again. We still have some little things to fine-tune to get those last two or three tenths. But it’s positive that we’ve been in close to or inside the top 10 in the last three races in qualifying.
“From where we started in the first couple of races, we made just such a big step forward together with the team,” she says. “We’ve worked very hard, and the car has been feeling really good lately. I just need to put it all together.”
Having seen Weug’s potential in the winter tests, KIC’s team manager Peter Flythstrom is not surprised by her development.
“We were doing a lot of simulator [work] in Finland,” he says. “Already in Hungary we could the see the results but then engine died. We were forced to change the engine a little bit earlier than we thought.
“When she had the same level engine as everybody else from Spa then she was starting to show the true pace, both in qualifying and the race.”
A forceful move on fellow Ferrari junior Rafael Camara into the final turn at Paul Ricard demonstrated that she is prepared to get her elbows out on track. “I saw the gap and went for it. I couldn’t make the move stick but you have to go for it, no matter who it is. It was a fair fight, so it’s good.”
“She’s tough but fair,” agrees Flythstrom. “She always leaves space. She’s not one of these drivers who forces the other off the track.”
Away from the glare of the spotlight, driver and team appear to have gelled immediately, possibly due, Flythstrom suggests, to their national characteristics.
“We Finns are a straight nation. We say what we are thinking, which is maybe also the Dutch mentality. Maya seems to suit immediately with us. She said that it’s so easy to be with us.”
“It is really difficult to learn this car,” he adds. “We didn’t want to rush. There is no point putting huge pressure on the driver which destroys the learning curve, so we give her time.”
By taking this as a learning year, Weug agrees that “there hasn’t been massive pressure”.
“Our goal was to improve every time we go out and I think we exceeded our expectations already in some races, which is good. I think we can be happy with that.”