Rapax driver Sergey Sirotkin has undoubtedly been one of the big surprises of the season, being the first one to prove that championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne is not as unbeatable as he seems to be.

In an exclusive interview with Read Motorsport Sirotkin talks about adapting to the GP2 Series, his expectations for his debut season, and how to take the fight to Vandoorne.

Read Motorsport: You had a rather rocky start to the season with no points until Monaco, how did you manage to turn that around?

Sergey Sirotkin: You know, it wasn’t really a specific point. We were very good in the winter testing, all the way through, so we had high expectations for the season… but in the first races, not everything went according to our plans. We were unlucky, and a GP2 weekend is very short so as soon as something starts to go a bit wrong it is very difficult to get it back. Since then we found the rhythm and understood the way we need to work. As the weekend is very short, we found a way to manage this, and since then I think it went quite smooth, we brought back our shape which we had in the winter testing, we are scoring podiums after podiums, since everything looks fine.

Read Motorsport: You are currently fourth in the championship standings, tied with Rio Haryanto on points. It is your rookie season, how does that exceed your expectations?

Sergey Sirotkin: Yeah, obviously since Monaco we scored a lot of points, I think we are one of the, except Vandoorne probably, we are definitely the most consistent team, I mean Spa was a weekend where we were very unlucky with the safety car and everything. It was upside down, except that we qualified up further up so we were still there, and we showed everybody that we are indeed still there. It’s the rookie season so I have nothing to lose, so I I will not stop myself fighting for top three positions… actually we are already top three, having the same points as Haryanto, but I mean it’s not really the target.

We’re not focusing on the championship we are focusing race by race, trying to get the maximum out of each session, without thinking too much about the long time strategy and blah blah blah… So this is our advantage at the moment, and I would say that in Spa we had a very bad weekend but we still scored some points. For example, when (Alexander) Rossi had a bad weekend in Budapest he didn’t score any points at all, so I think that for sure the target for ourselves is to fight for second as long as it is very close. And it is very close, you know, one race better, one race worse, this is the difference.

Read Motorsport: Mastering tyre management is one of the biggest challenges of the GP2 Series. How difficult was it for you to adapt to the Pirelli tyres, and how different are they compared to the Michelin tyres from the World Series Renault?

Sergey Sirotkin: Obviously they are a bit different if you talk about one lap they need to be driven a bit differently. They have to be driven more with longitudinal forces and less with mixing the lateral and longitudinal forces, but apart from that they are quite understandable I would say, even the tyre degradation is also quite understandable. You need to find the way to manage it, once you do that it is not really a problem. I already know that, after doing another few seasons, I could get more experience, but I think I am already quite good with that.

Read Motorsport: DRS is also a new challenge for most drivers in the series, but you are already familiar with a similar system from the World Series Renault. How do these systems compare to each other and how difficult was it to adapt?

Sergey Sirotkin: For me it was nothing to adapt, it’s not the most difficult thing in the racing car, you know. In the World Series, was had the DRS but it was working differently, we could use it wherever we wanted, and in F1 weekends and GP2 when you use the DRS in the race, first of all, you use it only in some specific zones, and then you use it only when you’re less than one second behind the car in front of you. In World Series you could use it everywhere, the car in front could use it, so it was something just to make the car quicker, not something which helps to overtake.

Read Motorsport: So now that you have adapted pretty well to the GP2 Series, what are your expectations for the remaining season?

Sergey Sirotkin: They are very high, we push hard and everybody knows we have one of the quickest cars. We just need to see how it goes, if everything continues in this way we’re looking for the podiums and some wins say, every weekend we are coming to.

Read Motorsport: Last but not least, how do you plan to challenge Stoffel Vandoorne, who has been very dominant this season?

Sergey Sirotkin: Obviously he is really doing a good job this year, and obviously it is not very easy to stop him, but we were the first car who almost did it at the Red Bull Ring, and then we were the first car to actually beat him in qualifying and in the race in Silverstone. In principle, it’s possible. In Spa, for example, we were on different strategies, we had brake problems, but he saw that I was first coming through turn 1… if our strategy had been for example quicker than his one, it would have been another chance to win the race.

Even though we had some difficulties with the brakes, and our pace during the race distance was not that good, you could see that we were very close at least to fight him again, because potentially our strategy should have been quicker, so it was something that was at least possible. So obviously we are trying to do this every weekend, if everything goes perfectly, it is something we are able to do. It is just not easy to make sure that we do our part perfectly.