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Simon Trummer: “Its Great to be on the Podium”

2 Mins read

For Simon Trummer, the Bahrain GP2 Series weekend was something of a breakthrough event for the Swiss driver, claiming his maiden podium finish with second place in the sprint race. The fact the Rapax driver managed to claw his way up from the back of the field (having stalling on the dummy grid in race one) to the front in race two shows he had a great race.

“It went really good, I mean from where we started I’m happy with it,” admitted Trummer to The Checkered Flag. “I didn’t expect to stop so late, but the tyres still felt good, so we kept going, and it paid off. I just saw cars in front I wanted to overtake, I had fresh tyres, and so the speed different was huge.”

Speaking about the start of his weekend, he admitted his qualifying session did not go to plan after the red flag mid-session caused him to be out of sequence and left him down in 21st position on the grid. He also admitted that stalling on the grid was his mistake.

“We should have qualified more up front, but the strategy went wrong with being on track [after the red flag],” said the Swiss driver.

“I tried to get back to my starting procedure from last season, and tried it on the green flag lap, but it was my mistake, and for sure it wasn’t great.”

The Saturday feature race saw him finish seventh place, and thus took a front row grid slot into the sprint race on Sunday. He lead into the first corner after Carlin driver Felipe Nasr had a bad start from pole position, but lost out to the fast-starting Jolyon Palmer on the run down to the first corner on lap two, but shadowed the British DAMS driver for the whole race in finishing P2.

“Its great to be on the podium, just such a good feeling,” said Trummer. “I am happy but more than this it is the feeling that your work pays off which make it amazing. Palmer was really strong at the beginning, after I was thinking I could catch him again, but he was to strong, so it finished like that.”

The twenty-four-year-old from Frutigen admitted that the new for 2014 Pirelli tyres will take some time to get used to.

“You learn every time on track something about them, but I think every track will be a bit different on them, we will see.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, the Swiss driver believes that the result in Bahrain will have a positive effect not just on himself but the whole Rapax team.

“It means a lot [of confidence], not only for me, for my team as well. We are working so great together; we will see what the season will bring.”

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Long time motorsport fanatic, covering Formula 1 and the occassional other series. Feel free to give him a follow on Twitter at @Paul11MSport.
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