Sébastien Philippe: “With Théo Pourchaire, we don’t set a goal”

How did the pre-season testing in Bahrain go?

Very good, we did the job we wanted to do. We worked on the performance in qualifying and the long relays. Afterwards, there are not necessarily any major lessons to be learned, either with regard to ourselves or with regard to the competition, because we do not know who did what.

In 2020, your main concern was the lack of regularity. How to cure it ? 

It is a set. This requires both a good understanding of the car's behavior in certain situations and optimization of the car's performance by the drivers. No matter the setup, the drivers must get 100% out of the car every time. It's a lot of teamwork, between the mechanics, engineers and drivers. We started this work this winter based on data from last season. We hope to have the key to being more regular. 

Are the new Hard tires so different from the old ones?  

There is a very significant performance gap between the Hardliners and the Options. Even more than usual, because the new Hard tires are not very efficient. This will make the strategy even more interesting, because there will be several tactical possibilities with these two types of rubber, especially since the Soft tires seem to be quite durable. It will therefore be necessary to find the right balance between degradation and loss of lap time before degradation. It will be interesting, especially on the first weekend (March 26). 

What is the objective for the season for your drivers?

For Christian Lundgaard it's quite clear, it's the title. He is in his second year so it is imperative that he wins for the rest of his career. With Théo, we don't set a goal. We want to have the same approach as the one we had in F3 with him last year: that of learning, understanding and progressing. In F3, he adapted very quickly. We'll see where all this takes us.