Photo: Prema
Ugo Ugochukwu was left delighted by his “best qualifying of the year” having secured second on the grid for the FIA Formula 3 feature race at Silverstone.
The American arrived at the British track off the back of a promising round in Austria, following a difficult start to his debut F3 campaign in which he and his Prema team struggled to adapt to the new F3 car.
“The start of the season was just a struggle to be honest,” admitted Ugochukwu after qualifying. “It was just trying to get on top of the new car, people had arrived and were quick immediately and we struggled quite a bit with it.”
The Prema driver managed just four points in the opening five rounds of the season but has since shown promising pace, finishing fifth on track in the Austria sprint race but later being promoted to fourth following Nikola Tsolov’s disqualification.
“Yeah, we have made really big steps,” said Ugochukwu after Austria. “It was really tricky at the start of the year with the new car but for us but we’ve made some major steps forward. Race pace is also really good, especially after Austria, so I’m feeling really happy, we’ll see though if that confidence translates in the future.”
The 17 year-old claimed second in qualifying on Friday at Silverstone giving Prema its best starting position all season. As a result, both he and his team’s confidence is high as they enter the second half of the season.
“I’m feeling really good after that [qualifying],” Ugochukwu said. “It was by far the best qualifying of the year. We made some really good steps after the last race in Austria, the pace looks really good in both qualifying and the race so in the sprint race we’ll just try and gain places and then really focus on the feature race.
“Everyone is feeling really confident to be honest. Every weekend we keep getting better so today’s been a big boost in confidence for everyone.”