Tatiana in her Jenzer Motorsport GP3 car at Paul Ricard
After two disappointing rounds in the GP3 Series that saw Tatiana Calderón being caught up in on-track incidents in both races at Paul Ricard in France and late engine trouble dropping her down the field in Sunday’s second race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, Tatiana has finally had a result to smile about.
Tatiana battled her way to her best finish of the GP3 Series season with an assured and feisty drive to the top 10 last weekend at Silverstone, which she said was the confidence boost she really needed after a run of difficult races.
The Alfa Romeo Sauber Formula 1 test driver was in fine form as she carved her way through the field during Sunday’s second race at the historic British Grand Prix venue, drawing a line under a tough run of results in the process.
Tatiana doing the track walk in beautiful summer sunshine at Silverstone
A combination of unusually hot weather at Silverstone, with track temperatures exceeding 50 degrees C at some stages of the weekend, and the first appearance of the year of Pirelli’s hard compound tyre posed a unique challenge to Tatiana and her Jenzer Motorsport team.
Despite a low-key run to 17th in Friday evening’s qualifying session, the Colombian ace was well positioned to make progress and challenge for points in Saturday’s opening race.
She had already recovered one place when she was again the victim of a mistake of a rival driver, being tagged into a spin exiting Luffield corner by the Arden car of Gabriel Aubry – before her race was finally ended by a throttle sensor problem.
Tatiana again started 17th for the second race, helped by a grid penalty for Aubry, but managed to climb to 14th after an impressive first lap and managed to gradually pick off more of her rivals with a series of deft passes to finally finish 10th.
“Historically Silverstone has not been my best circuit, but in Race 2 I felt great with the car, moving forward, and having a lot of fun with the battles, so for sure it gives us motivation to keep fighting. The team made a big step forward after qualifying, we turned the weekend around, and it’s nice to finish this triple-header with a good feeling. We go to next round in Budapest knowing what to expect, because we already used the soft tyre in Austria, and using what we found here I think it could be a positive weekend,” said Tatiana Calderón.
Tatiana on track at Silverstone
While points are only awarded down to eighth on Sundays, Tatiana’s climb through the field on a track that is not among her favourites gives her good reason to be optimistic of making strong showings in the remaining rounds of the championship.
Tatiana will now get some well-earned rest before the next GP3 round in Budapest, Hungary on July 27-29, the last event before the summer break. Prior to that, she will join Alfa Romeo Sauber for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim in her test driver capacity.
Photo credit: Photo Pellegrini.