Bruno Senna made history in Bahrain by reintroducing his famous family name to Formula 1. Having been the only driver for the debutant Hispania Racing Team throughout practice, the Brazilian sat down for GPUpdate.net to recall the selection of new challenges and emotions prior to the opening race of the 2010 season.
What a weekend! In Bahrain I saw a whole different side to motor racing. Previously, I have always had cars which were ready and tested but Friday was my first day as a test driver. You never realise just how much happens behind the scenes of a Formula 1 team but I've learned so much about working with everybody, which is incredibly important.
We arrived in Bahrain on Tuesday morning and during the afternoon I headed off to the circuit. At the track, I saw the car for the first time with the engine and gearbox complete and was very happy to see that everything was there. It was a good moment to see everybody working on the car. I got to know the engineers and spent most of the time at the track working with the team and doing everything we weren't able to do earlier.
Once it was time to go out on-track on Friday, I had to keep cool. Of course, everyone around me was driving on the limit and I drove the first lap in a brand-new car, although I didn't want to ruin everyone else's laps and had to watch my mirrors very closely. Fortunately, my experience in the Le Mans Series helped me a lot - in the Le Mans 24 Hours I had to let faster cars by all the time, so you soon learn how to do that without hindering them.
Of course my team-mate didn't get to drive the car until Saturday and I felt pretty bad for him - I know what it's like when you're not driving the car but someone else is. Also, we lost valuable telemetry information because I was the only one driving.
Although I'm a rookie in Formula 1, I already knew many of the journalists and photographers in the paddock; the media attention was quite high at some points but obviously I shared it with a lot of other guys, like Michael Schumacher.
It was funny - when I was in GP2 and walking down the paddock with another driver, I usually got all the attention, but in Bahrain I was usually left alone so that was quite an easy time for me! But the welcome in the paddock was very warm - it felt like home very quickly and I loved it.
After this difficult - but very useful - weekend, we're heading off to Australia. At Albert Park we plan to have a much more complete weekend. We're taking all the experience of Bahrain to Australia and are going to have a great improvement in most areas, learning more about the performance of the car and the whole procedure will be different. We have learned so much and can only improve. From Melbourne onwards we want to get closer to the new teams and eventually challenge and beat them.
The season starts in Australia!
Bruno
Series
Formula 1
Personalities
Bruno Senna
Teams
HRT F1 Team
Other
Get your official Formula 1 tickets at Sportstadium.com
| Bruno Senna | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
| More Bruno Senna photos | |||
English
Nederlands
Español
Italiano
