Nina Gademan’s Las Vegas Qualifying session didn’t go as well as planned. The F1 Academy driver was only capable of a timing worthy of P8, which fortunately equates to reverse grid pole in Race 1. Her fastest lap time sat 1.4s off the fastest driver’s time, and a second off of her teammate’s time.
She admitted: “The start of the session we were quite competitive and then made a lot of mistakes,”. Gademan acknowledged that she wasn’t quick enough, before suddenly improving on the final lap. This resulted in her reverse grid pole. Despite this, she is desperate for an “actual pole”, and will be focusing on data in the coming days.
“Basically not quick enough and then improved a lot on the last lap, which then gave me this reverse grid pole. I don’t know how many this is now, like three. It’s getting too much, I want to get an actual pole right now! We have to look into the data and see how we can improve over the next two days.”
The Dutch driver continued to admit that her entire run was rather inconsistent until the final moments. Her teammate Doriane Pin remained largely quicker, so she will be looking into the data to find the room for improvement.
“It was just pretty inconsistent over the run. At the end, I put it a bit more together. I really have to look into the data to see where we can gain the time because Doriane’s a bit quicker than me, so we can learn from her.”
Gademan has led 44 laps across this season’s entirety, though despite this, she has only taken one win. This is the most laps led this year by any driver in the field. Gademan noted: “I want to lead four races this year,”. She continued on to emphasise that Race 1 will be her next win, despite her understanding of how tough it will be. The Dutch driver stated: “So that’ll be tomorrow and then get a win. I know it’s going to be hard with the tow, but I’m tough!”
When asked where she’ll need to defend the most, she noted Turn 5 on the opening lap. She contacted to admit that Turn 7 is rather easy to defend, and that Turn 12 shouldn’t be too tricky either. Turn 14 is one she noted as possibly being tough.
“Probably going into Turn 5 on the first lap. Turn 7 is quite easy to defend, just stick to the inside. I don’t think Turn 12, it’ll be too tricky but maybe Turn 14. Either they’ll have to run me off the track or they’re going to stay behind me.”
