Having faith in a good race car, Charouz, will focus on their qualifying pace in the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season.
Team manager, Kenny Kirwan, spoke exclusively to insideF2 about the team’s three day test at the Yas Marina Circuit, following the final race of the 2021 season.
He expressed the team’s goal for 2022 is to finish in the top five or higher, and improving their qualifying positions will help them to achieve that.
“We’ve played around with different tyre warm up and procedures in testing, and hopefully we have something decent to go back to.
“I don’t know whether we’ve been totally successful with it, because weather conditions have been quite hot Day 1 and Day 2, and it’s been a bit cooler Day 3.”
When asked if it would be beneficial to test here at the end of the season, and switch from Bahrain to a cooler European climate for the pre-season test next year, Kenny stated:
“Traditionally in the past we would have gone somewhere like Barcelona in March, and then have gone and done Bahrain testing, and gone and raced. The problem is Central Europe is quite cold at that time of year.
“It’s all weather related. What will work here, or in Bahrain in these nice temperatures might not work in Barcelona in May when it’s quite cold. Sometimes these things can be weather and track specific.”
The teams are of course very happy they will be supporting more Formula 1 events from 2022, following a season of large gaps between race weekends in the revised 2021 format.
Would it have been feasible to have tested within these intervals?
“There was big gaps in the racing schedule. But in those big gaps there was still not a chance to test because normally the freight in a flyaway will move from one circuit to the next. Again to reduce the cost base. Testing is strictly controlled, these cars are not cheap to run.”
It isn’t only the car transportation and additional sessions that would see raised costs for the teams, drivers too would have to fund any supplemental events.
“If we could have cart blanche and just go and do 15 days somewhere, things would start to get very expensive. And then you’d find some drivers could afford to do it and others couldn’t, and you’d have a mix match – So it’s quite good to have the testing ban in place.”
Formula 2 already sees a longer season than Formula 1, as they begin testing sooner, and finish later.
“It begins in earnest in early March, and it ends… well here we are, nearly a week until Christmas.”
With some of the teams, including Charouz, participating in the nine 2022 Formula 3 race weekends, and the increased 14 Formula 2 events, perhaps the breaks this season will inevitably be beneficial, as the teams prepare for a busy year ahead .
Image Credit: Formula Motorsport Limited
