Trident F2 driver Bent Viscaal has admitted he his not quite happy with his consistency so far this season. The Dutch driver’s season is highlighted by a fourth-place finish in Baku, however this is his only points finish so far: “Consistency is very important. Myself, I’m not quite happy yet with our consistency over the year so far.”

By Charlie Parker

Despite only having that one points finish, Bent is happy with some of the weekends so far. The opening weekend of the season, Bahrain, being one of them: “I think as a trend, the first three races of the season were very promising. Bahrain, it was a bit of a shame on the strategy problem in, I think, the second race. There were a lot of points on the line there. Overall, I felt good about my first race.”

The second weekend in Monaco was a mixed bag. A crash in free practice had a knock-on effect in qualifying. Viscaal qualified 15th and due to the nature of Monaco, he only made up one position in the first sprint race: “I had an issue in practice that led to me crashing in that session, that made it very difficult. The pace there looked very good for the first time on a street track and I was getting more and more confident with the car.”

As mentioned, Baku was the strongest performance of the season so far: “We made the soft tyre work quite well, especially in sector 2 and 3. I just felt very comfortable with the car, very comfortable with the tyres. It was a shame I made a bit of an awkward mistake in qualifying. But we got our first points of the season.”

The success they found in Baku tyre wise, did not translate over to Silverstone. Viscaal finished 16th and 13th with a retirement in Sprint Race 2: “We just couldn’t make the car work. I think it might have been tyre related. For some reason we could not turn on the harder compound as well as we can with the soft compound.”

However, the F2 rookie found the silver lining for the weekend: “I was actually happy with my performance. I felt like I maximised, I got the most out of the car. Just not the position I want to be in”.

Overall, the Dutch driver has had a mixed bag of a season in a very tough F2: “I think at some points I should have gotten more performance out of the car. Sometimes I think the car could have been a little bit better”. 

Coming up is Monza. The temple of speed is similar to Baku with its long straights and high speeds and Viscaal thinks the similarities in the track will help him: “We learnt quite a lot in Baku. Our car seems to do pretty well in low downforce configurations. And in combination with soft tyres. The soft tyre works well for our car. We just have to see what happens in Monza. It’s quite bumpy like Baku.” 

Viscaal came into the season with a one-round deal and was given the full season after the impressive Bahrain weekend. F2 can be visceral at times with driver changes, but Viscaal isn’t worried about his future just yet: “I’m fully focused on what I’m doing this year. Of course, I’ve started to think a little bit about it. Trying to get as many options as possible. But there’s nothing that looks to be a done deal soon so I’m still very focused on this year.”

F2 returns from the long summer break at Monza, as we head into the back half of the season.

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