Experience doesn't pay in 2007It has not been a good start to the season for
Christijan Albers as he aims to get to grips with the current Spyker Ferrari package and a talented team-mate in Adrian Sutil. The Dutch driver claims he is happy however as the team makes progress.
Both
cars finished again in Spain. Were you happy with the overall performance?
"It's getting better and better. It's just a shame about the drive through I got. Anyway, it's done! In the beginning Adrian walked a little bit away from me. We had a good pit stop, and I came quite close to him. I had a reasonable set of tyres and I could catch him again, but then I had traffic and the drive through while we quite strong on this set of tyres, so it was really a shame. You have lap times up and down, and you're just chasing yourself. But when we changed to the hard tyres we had a problem in the pits which stalled the engine, but we finished the race, which was important as we needed to get as much data as possible and to learn as much as possible from the car. Sometimes in the race it was really good to drive it, and sometimes it was difficult. That's always what you have!"
Drivers with a more aggressive style, like yourself, seem to have found life difficult with the harder tyres this year. How are you trying to adapt?
"I am trying to adapt myself, and I'm also trying to find something in the car with my engineers to get the car better. People who drive aggressively, like Kubica or Alonso, and maybe also Kimi, I think they are struggling like me. You just have to try to adapt yourself as quickly as possible.
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When you don't really feel comfortable with the car, do you lose a bit of confidence?
"If you don't know what you had, you just learn how it is. But if you come from last year, it's much harder. Adrian is doing a good job, he's a really quick driver, but also he didn't have to adapt to how it was. He couldn't expect something else like we had last year, because with last year's tyres it was really an F1 car, you turned in, you could push, it was really good to drive the car. It's good now also of course, but it's more difficult, and you see that. I think it's the same for Lewis."
Do you feel that you are making progress?
"Yes. I'm really happy now. Maybe it sounds strange, but we are improving all the time, the set-up as well as myself, and you see I'm coming closer. I should have been in front of Adrian in qualifying, but I had traffic on the last outing. Four cars in the first corner, and the second time it was three cars. But I have to say that I'd rather have bad luck now than through the season, when we have the new car. I'm really looking forward to that."
Are you excited about going to Monaco?
"Yes of course, but for a driver it's a really difficult weekend, because there are a lot of distractions. It's a very busy place, the garages are very small, and so on. But I think on Sunday night everybody will relax and everything will be easy!"
Source Spyker Ferrari
