Interview
‘The goal was to fight’ - Gademan eyes Standings lead after strong Shanghai comeback
Nina Gademan has outlined her intentions to seize the lead of the Drivers’ Standings after an encouraging opening round in Shanghai, where she bounced back from a disappointing Qualifying session to secure two top-four finishes.
Despite initial improvements, high levels of traffic compromised Gademan’s final lap and she was forced to settle for eighth place in Qualifying, which was converted into pole position for the Reverse Grid Race.
She went on to execute a faultless lights-to-flag victory to beat rookie driver Natalia Granada to the top step and continued her resurgence with another superb drive to P4 in the Feature Race, kicking off what the Alpine driver hopes will be a title challenge.
Reflecting on the weekend, she said: “We used our really good set of tyres yesterday and obviously the people around me at the front did that today, so we were expecting to lack a bit of pace at the end of the race because the fronts were dead, basically.
“Up until then, I was just playing it smart – I had a good start and gained two positions, and another one on the opening lap, then I was just following and profiting from other people’s mistakes.”
Gademan was one of a handful of drivers to benefit from an error by leader Alba Larsen, who ran wide at the Safety Car restart in the Feature Race and tumbled down the order, but she also had to concentrate on managing her tyres amid tight competition from McLaren’s Ella Lloyd.
“At some point on the Safety Car restart I knew it was going to be tough because my tyres were dead,” she explained. “Still, the pace was really good. It’s just I had to defend a bit from Lloyd, which was a nice battle.
“I finished P4 and I think it was a good points haul, good damage reduction that we had to do. The goal was to fight today which we did, which is good. A little bit gutted to miss out on the podium, obviously, but we’re P3 in the Standings. It’s a good start, and from there we can work our way to P1.”
With an impressive first round and 22 points under her belt, Gademan appeared keen to carry the momentum forward to Montreal. It’s a track which holds fun memories for the Dutch driver as she finished P3 there on two occasions last season, marking her highest-scoring weekend of 2025.
Asked whether she can go even further and fight for the Feature Race win this time, Gademan replied: “Yes, definitely. I think I need to figure out what we can do better than last year because we were just not able to win it. It’s a track I had two podiums at last year so that’s good, and I can hopefully get another win there.
“We’re going to do some work behind the scenes, going to do some karting to stay in shape. We’re just going to go full focus on Montreal and get P1 in the Standings there.”