The German driver wants to avoid complacency after stepping on the podium twice, including his first time in the series, at Portimão.

By Juan Arroyo

Valentin Kluss is looking to maintain his form from Eurocup-3’s Portimão round after achieving his largest points haul of the season with two podiums and a pole position.

The Campos driver finished sixth in race one, second in race two with the fastest lap starting from pole, and third in race three after his teammate Christian Ho ahead of him retired with a suspension failure. Kluss’ performance comes following a challenging start to the season in which he had yet to fully acclimatise to the car and suffered multiple mechanical failures.

The results have bumped the German driver up to sixth in the standings, but he is wary of becoming complacent in the coming rounds.

“We cannot relax. The job is not done yet. We proved we improved, we worked, and now it’s just important to keep going like this. One good weekend is not enough in the end. Of course, it’s positive that we improved but we have to keep this up,” Kluss told Feeder Series.

“[The result] is quite a relief because the first two weekends didn’t go as planned and we were working quite hard. We were already quite sure that we will take a big step but now to have really taken the step, it’s quite a relief,” he added.

“We’re quite happy about it but now of course we have to keep this and not go back to where we were in Austria, for example. That’s the goal for the next weekend now: to keep the pace and keep scoring the most points in the team’s championship.”

“Especially I want to be on a good pace because I don’t feel like France is one of my strongest circuits. As long as the car is fine it should be going decent as well.”

Kluss added that his success at Portimão could be attributed to having confidence in the car from early in the weekend in spite of his unfamiliarity with the circuit.

“I didn’t know the track so that was not really a benefit, but I just felt really confident, and the car felt pretty good from the start. That just made me even more confident.”

“I was not really thinking about the outcome because I think [before] my mental side was not the strongest. I was thinking too much about the outcome instead of what I’m doing. But this time it went pretty well. Everyone did a good job and I was confident all the way through.”

“I would say part of the reason for this was the work I put in the simulator. Part of it was also just the progress that you have with the experience. Every weekend you step in the car, you just make progress automatically. But of course, without the work I put in, it wouldn’t have been the same.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency