It’s a weird sight in feeder series: Prema was pretty much off the pace in Formula Regional by Alpine last weekend. And the timing couldn’t be worse after a great podium from Paul Aron at Monaco.

This is the season to shine for 17 year old Mercedes Junior Paul Aron. He has a years worth of experience in Formula Renault Eurocup and the talent to compete some good super licence points. But after three podiums in the first six races, Paul Ricard came. Not only Aron, but also team mates David Vidales and Dino Beganovic were nowhere near the podium places. Prema was just too slow.

Aron explains how he experienced the weekend where he finished 14th and 26th. “The race weekend in Paul Ricard was quite difficult. We struggled with the car from the beginning, and we didn’t have the best pace. It showed in qualifying 1 when we were quite far from first place. For sure, it was a bit of a shame, but it is what it is. We tried to improve the car for the race. We tried something which didn’t really work in race 1, and for qualifying 2 we tried something different that didn’t seem to be the best setup again but was a bit better. Finally, for race 2 we found the right setup and the pace was really good. We made up a lot of positions and we had the pace to go even further up. Sadly, I got a penalty due to an incident, but what matters is that we found what we needed and managed to get the car to work.”

Vidales did get some points, but was also out of contention for the podium. “It was another tough weekend for the team. We struggled with the pace from the beginning, and we tried to find where the problem was. We worked really hard all weekend and finally, I think for the last race we managed to find the problem and some solutions. The pace looked much better in race 2. It’s really positive to leave Paul Ricard with a good feeling, knowing where we can work, and improving in such a good way. I think it will be fine in Zandvoort, we have a lot to analyze after this weekend, and we can learn a lot from these two days as a team. We just have to keep pushing.”

Rookie Beganovic took home a single point, but says it wasn’t that bad for him. “Not an easy weekend for us as a team. We struggled quite a lot with the pace but we kept working really hard to improve the car, to make the best out of it. I think we made good progress, we improved every session. Personally, I think it was not bad for me considering the performance and I think I kind of made the most out of the situation. We are in this together and we are trying to fight back for Zandvoort, analyse as much data as we can and come back stronger.”