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| The Red Bull F1 junior in exile http://www.autosport.com/premium/feature/7...junior-in-exile"I would say it's quite different from Europe in the way they work," says Gasly. "Even if it's a series in Japan, you can compare it with IndyCar - I think it's pretty fair to say that Super Formula in Asia is the main series like Indy in the States.
"What I find really difficult at the moment is the communication as a European, because basically my engineer is the only one who speaks English at the team. What's really difficult is that you cannot communicate with all of them.
"When everything goes well I don't find it a big problem, but when you start to struggle and there are things to be changed, that's a difficult point, because I cannot say what I need and what I would like to change.
"He's the only guy who can understand and his English is good, but not like an English person. And when he translates to the team he speaks in Japanese so I don't know what he's saying, and I don't know if he told them exactly the things I said in the way I said it.
"You can see that they are professional in the way they work, but many things are different in the communication with the driver - I make reports after each test and each race, and I've never got any reports from the team, whereas in GP2 I remember you have a preview before the weekend, big preparation, and after the race weekend you got... especially with Prema you got 50 pages about each session, the car and everything!
"Here, basically you give your feedback, but it's really difficult to get something back from the team. It's something that Stoffel also told me he experienced last year.
"What I find different compared to Prema is that last year we had a really good baseline, and each track we were going to we knew if it was good it was P1/P2, and if it was bad it was P4/P5. And this year, you need to ask about everything. They don't know if it's going to be good, if this set-up's going to work.
"In terms of organisation, you always have a run plan in GP2, 3.5 or F1. You know that you're going to test this in the second run, this in the third run, and it's really clear all the items you want to try.
"Before this weekend [at Okayama] I was like, 'Yeah OK, so what's the plan for this weekend? What do you want to try?' And it's, 'Yeah, we're going to do it with the feelings. After the first run we're going to see and we're going to adapt the car at that time.' It's a bit old-school sometimes. It's quite a change from what I used to have."
Unlike Mardenborough and Cassidy, who share a flat in Tokyo and also have full programmes in Japan's Super GT series, Gasly can't immerse himself in Japan because of his F1 duties. That obviously also slows down the adaptation to a very different world: "I usually try to come on the Monday so I have three days to get used to the time difference." |
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