Into the final round of the Formula 3 season at Madrid, Ugo Ugochukwu did ‘exactly what was needed’ to give himself the momentum for the championship battle.
With a second Madrid Feature Race added to the F3 schedule to make up for the missed Middle Eastern rounds, the series held back-to-back qualifying sessions to decide the order for the two longer races and the Sprint Race.
This left Ugo Ugochukwu and Freddie Slater with just one hour to set the grid for both races and one chance to put yourself as far forward as possible.
In the first session, Ugochukwu put his Campos in fourth, a strong result that kept him in the top 12 for the reverse grid of the Sprint Race. Then, in the second session, he improved on that performance, narrowly missing pole position.
For the first Feature Race, he will line up fourth, and in the second Feature Race, he lines up second.
He told the media, including Motorsport Week, that he lost time in sector one on his push laps.
“I was one-tenth off before starting the last push, and I was fifth or sixth, so it was very tight there.” He said. “We have been struggling all week in sector one.
“I was just trying to, let’s say, minimise the time loss there and then do a good rest of the lap, which I did. Yeah, it was good. Good lap at the end.”
A tight championship fight
With just 15 points between Ugochukwu and Slater coming into the weekend, having a clean and consistent session was incredibly important for the battle for the title. The Campos driver opened up on the pressure on his shoulders coming into the session.
“There was pressure to deliver, do a good lap, especially on a track like this with no room for margin.” He said, “You need to be very on the limit if you want to qualify well and be in the front row.
“I knew I had to commit. Every lap, I tried to push it more and more, getting closer to the limit. But of course, there’s no room for mistakes at this point in the season. That’s what I managed to do.”
Despite the pressure, Ugochukwu stayed calm and pulled out exactly what he needed to fight for the title. Meanwhile, Slater had car issues plaguing the entirety of his qualifying session, leaving him 17th for the first Feature and eighth for the second.
“It was a positive day for us.” He admitted after the session, acknowledging that it was the necessary result.
“Two good qualities are exactly what we needed. And yeah, I think we just executed everything well, no mistakes. I got the lap in when we needed it. So pretty happy overall. I think I maximised it to the limit.
“Some of the others were quite quick today. P4, P2, we take it, and I think we can look forward to the races to maximise our points.”
With this being the first race at Madrid, there are still many unknowns. In the Sprint Race, Ugochukwu managed to claim three points, which brought the gap down to 12 points. However, the field has yet to run a longer-format race, which will bring many unknowns.
The American driver admitted that, for him, the priority is having ‘clean races’ and hoping they come with points and a championship title.
“I think two clean or three clean races will be nice, and picking up the points along the way.
“But you know, we’ll see how the race unfolds. You know, it’s going to be the first few races here in Madrid. So we don’t really know fully what to expect on the racing side of things.
“Yeah, we’ll see if Sunday we have the opportunity to go for the win. It will be nice to get another one under our belt. Overall points are the main thing. No secret that’s what’s going to get us the championship.”
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