Interview
Gademan disappointed by Shanghai outcome as Hausmann vows to fight for the top-five
Whilst Doriane Pin brought home victory in Race 2, it was a tough day for the rest of the PREMA Racing garage as an incident between Nina Gademan and Tina Hausmann curtailed their hopes for a big points haul in Shanghai.
Gademan’s weekend had gotten off to a more optimistic start, with P8 in Qualifying awarding her reverse grid pole for Race 1. Unphased by three Safety Car restarts, the Alpine driver held a firm lead until a technical issue forced her to retire with two laps to go.
She didn’t fare much better on Sunday, as teammate Hausmann gambled on a move whilst Gademan battled with Kick Sauber’s Emma Felbermayr for sixth. Tagging the Dutch driver from behind, the move sent Gademan into a spin.
Eventually salvaging a point in P10, Gademan was still able to take some positives, but is resolute that she could have contended for the top-five if events had played out differently.
“The Safety Car was not in our favour for the people that wanted to make up a lot of places,” she reflected. “Nevertheless, we still made up a place in Turn 1 and was about to make up another place until unfortunately I got taken out.
“Things can happen like that. Of course, it’s really disappointing and frustrating as we had damage on the car, so the car was quite hard to drive. Even with the damage, we still made it back into the points, which I did not expect. We had some really clean overtakes.
“On the performance side, I’m really happy as me and the team grew a bit closer. We still have to figure out how I like the car to be setup and for me, how to adjust to the F1 grip. Everything was new to the both of us, but I think we managed that perfectly, just not really happy with the outcome.
“I’m just glad I could show my pace and that I can be up there after Qualifying we had with the wrong strategy and setup after the first run. Performance-wise, we made the most out of this weekend, we just didn’t get the outcome but it only makes me more motivated and confident for Jeddah.”
Hausmann’s weekend was also on a downturn. After finishing second in Practice, the Aston Martin driver narrowly missed out on a top-eight time in Qualifying by 0.051s — leaving her unable to benefit from the reverse grid in Race 1.
Making contact with Felbermayr on the final lap cost both a shot at points, with her incident with Gademan the next day only adding to her disappointment.
Reflecting on the weekend, Hausmann said: “Free Practice was really strong. We were P2 and I think the top-five is where I belong this season. I’ve made a big step over the winter. It didn’t quite come together for Qualifying, which set us in the position of P9, which is not where I belong speed-wise.
“Lots of lessons learnt from the weekend, the first race since December. I need to make the switch from how it is in testing with not many cars around compared to how it is in the race.”
Ready to get back in the swing of things in Jeddah, the Swiss racer is convinced the pace is there but needs to show it when it counts on the race weekend.
“P2 in Free Practice shows my speed," Hausmann noted. "Being super close to my teammates like Doriane, who won the race, she’s the reference overall (…) It’s pretty clear what (we need) to work on, which is always good because you can work precisely on it and improve it. We need to make further steps, but confidence is not lost.”