Ryo Hirakawa, who makes his Formula 1 debut with the Haas team, has expressed that he could have accessed “with ease” the second round of qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix if he had not encountered traffic on his last lap of the session.
Hirakawa set his best time in the first sector and aspired to a place in Q3, thus surpassing drivers like Carlos Sainz. However, during his lap, he encountered Alex Albon, which made him lose time in the fast corners of the second sector, and later also with Franco Colapinto in the last part of the layout.
Reflecting on this experience in his first qualifying session in F1, the Japanese driver has described his performance as “a shame”, as he believes that the track conditions were optimal for achieving a better classification.
“I had traffic from Turn 6 and also in the high-speed sections, so I lost a lot of aerodynamic load,” commented Hirakawa. “I could have easily made it to Q2, which is a big, big shame for me, but it’s still nice to be here, so I’m not complaining too much. The environmental factors, as soon as I lose grip on the track, I feel it in sector 3. You need to push, but at the same time, manage a little.”
Ryo Hirakawa participated in the first practice session, and before being called to drive in the Saturday sessions, he had to abandon his usual morning routine to prepare for the weekend. Most of his FP3 was directed at preparing for qualifying, leaving Sunday as an unknown.
His approach for the race is to achieve a good start and cleanly complete the first corner. He did not want to speculate on whether he will leave his competition in the World Endurance Championship the week following the Monza final.
Hirakawa and his teammates in the Toyota #8 team, Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley, lead the championship with 25 points over the rival team #7, made up of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Nyck de Vries, who need to win to aspire to the final victory.
“I’m only focusing on tomorrow, it’s not the time to talk about next week. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. The plan is to have a good start, a good first corner, and face a lot of novelty, so just execute and do it as best as possible,” added Hirakawa.
This experience in FP1 has been valuable, as, according to him, he did not start from zero in FP3, which made the adaptation process to F1 easier for him.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
