Q & A with Bruno Senna

Senna, who has been confirmed as the team's second race driver alongside Vitaly Petrov for the rest of the season - says there is much still to learn and that he intends to make the most of his circuit knowledge at Monza to learn as much as he can about the Renault before F1 heads off to Asia.

Q. Is it a different feeling going into this weekend then?

Bruno Senna: Yes in a few ways. First I already have a weekend under my belt so I am not going into a complete unknown. And also there is the fact that I am going to be racing until the end of the season which is great. It means that the team is happy to give me the opportunity to stay in the car. It's going to be a great chance for me to prove myself. But I will have a very different approach from Spa.

Q. Psychologically does it take the pressure off a little in terms of having to deliver results in one hit?

BS: No. The pressure is there, the same way that I wanted to perform in Spa - which turned out pretty well - and it's the same sort of thing here, I want to have a good weekend and learn a lot. I hope it will be a bit more straightforward with the weather so we can do more straightforward work. But the important thing is that I can take that away from my head and just focus on my delivery on the track.

Q. How much of a factor is circuit knowledge?

BS: Very, very important. I mean starting in Spa - even though the conditions were extremely difficult - it was a great opportunity because Spa is a good circuit for me. Monza is also a good circuit for me, so I will be starting from a good place. But yes I mean when we start going to Asia, then knowing the car very well makes a bigger difference because you can judge things more efficiently right from the start. I have to catch up on this, but hopefully by then I will have enough miles in the car that I won't be too far off to start with.

Q. So you think that the chance came exactly at the right time for you, as opposed to it happening in Singapore?

BS: It would have been harder for sure, but the right timing would be to start the season with tests and do the whole season - that would be the perfect timing.

Q. You're approach has to be much different now as to when you were a reserve driver. What are you going to do?

BS: It's much better for me because I can actually try to be more relevant in the team. Before I was watching and learning - and now I'm working together with the team and giving my input. For sure there will be times when I am right and times when I am wrong. It's part of learning what kind of development it is and team development it is. So I am excited about this and I hope that my feedback and my feelings are the right direction for the team and the car.

Q. [Renault team principal] Eric Boullier commented that you have helped to boost team morale, have you noticed that?

BS: I think I have a good relationship with everybody in the team. I go to the factory and everybody is happy. Everybody was saying 'Well done and we are happy that you are in the car', and it makes me feel really happy to be wanted. I think it shows that people like me as a person and if I can deliver on the track then it is the whole package.

Q. Is your friendly personality out of the car the same in the car?

BS: When I'm working I'm a perfectionist I try to get everything right. I work very, very hard and I try to give 100% every time I'm in the car. So if I am not doing well I get grumpy. If the team makes a mistake I'm sure to point it out to them, the same way that if I am not performing I have already told them: 'You have to give me a hard time' because I want to be pushed into doing the best. The working environment is very harsh - not in a bad way - but it is a very 'let's push up all the way to the limit all the time', and that's how I am happy to work.

Q. What challenges do you see for the team in having two new drivers rather than an experienced one?

BS: The biggest challenge is that young drivers do not necessarily have the right path in our mind in where to take the development of the car. But this is relative, sometimes a driver can have this naturally and sometimes he learns it. This is the experience I am about to have, to know if my way of thinking and my way of working with the team will be automatically good for the development of the car or not. But I have a few races to try to that.

Q. Did you feel a sense of satisfaction after last weekend, because an awful lot of people had written you off not taking into account what had you achieved up until 2008?

BS: That's motor racing and sport. Everybody pays attention to whoever is on the rise and then if something goes wrong they forget about it so for me it doesn't matter. I know what I did and I remember it very well and this is a great opportunity to start again. I think Spa was, in terms of performance, was as good as it could be. I'm sure with more miles on the car it could be better. And the mistakes I made in Spa, were just mistakes. I guess if you look at this year and last year, all the new guys that came into cars, they made mistakes. Unfortunately for me it was the first time I went into a first corner crash in my career! So it wasn't the happiest moment, but, in the end of the day it happens and I am sure that every single driver on the grid has done it. I'm not punishing myself too much for it. I learned from the mistake and I know exactly what I did wrong. It's a correction factor for this weekend.

Q. Do you think having driven a whole race distance, it will help for wherever you line-up on Sunday?

BS: For sure, in Spa just before and after the safety car period I had a massive loss of time after the restart and I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening. Now I know that we just had the tyres on the borderline of becoming too old before the safety car, and after that I never got the rear tyres to recover. I didn't know that feeling because I had never run this car with high fuel - so when I started again and the car was all over the place, I thought it was eventually going to come back but it never did. I lost six seconds by not changing tyres and me not making the call. So it is one of those things that cost me six seconds or more... It doesn't matter because it was an 'experience' race, but it gives me a great starting point for this weekend. Don't worry there is still a lot to learn.

Q. What are your feelings towards Monza and the history of the track and everything?

BS: Monza is always a great race. You come here and the environment is incredible. It's one of my favourite circuits as well. It's very challenging. You need to be precise in the braking here that comes up at very high speed, it's a pretty tough task. I'm looking forward to this race and I think it will be very tough. I'm jumping into very different types of circuits at the moment. Spa to Monza is very different and then we go to Singapore which is completely different again so these challenges present a good variety of learning experiences for me from here on.

Q. Is it going to be like driving a totally different car with the very low downforce here?

BS: The car I drove last year had very low downforce everywhere so it should be fine!