Interview
Gademan braced for ‘tough’ defence of reverse grid pole after frustrating Las Vegas Qualifying
It was a challenging night on the streets of Las Vegas for Nina Gademan, with the Alpine driver left to rue her mistakes after qualifying a distant eighth.
Over 1.4s adrift of polesitter Chloe Chambers’ lap and a second off the pace of PREMA Racing teammate Doriane Pin in fourth, Gademan struggled to nail the perfect lap, despite some promising pace early on.
Reflecting on the session, the Dutch racer admitted that her third reverse grid pole position for Race 1 was a difficult consolation prize to accept.
“The start of the session we were quite competitive and then made a lot of mistakes,” she admitted. “Basically not quick enough and then improved a lot on the last lap, which then gave me this reverse grid pole.
“I don’t know how many this is now, like three. It’s getting too much, I want to get an actual pole right now! We have to look into the data and see how we can improve over the next two days.”
Gademan added: “It was just pretty inconsistent over the run. At the end, I put it a bit more together. I really have to look into the data to see where we can gain the time because Doriane’s a bit quicker than me, so we can learn from her.”
Despite finding herself in the familiar P1 position for Friday evening’s Race 1, Gademan has only won on one previous occasion in Zandvoort. Having led 44 laps so far this season — the most of anyone in the field — she knows exactly what she has to do to bring home the victory.
“I want to lead four races this year,” said Gademan. “So that’ll be tomorrow and then get a win. I know it’s going to be hard with the tow, but I’m tough!
Asked on where she’ll need to focus her defence, she replied: “Probably going into Turn 5 on the first lap. Turn 7 is quite easy to defend, just stick to the inside. I don’t think Turn 12, it’ll be too tricky but maybe Turn 14. Either they’ll have to run me off the track or they’re going to stay behind me.”