Alex Brundle: Aiming to make his mark in GP3

The GP3 Series established itself as a force to be reckoned with in 2011; the Formula 1 support category being a closely fought one, with 12 different drivers taking to the top step of the podium in 16 races.

Eventual champion Valtteri Bottas took four wins, securing the title in the penultimate race of the season by finishing ahead of his ART Grand Prix team-mate James Calado. Bottas now has an F1 test role with Williams, and the current crop of GP3 hopefuls will be aiming to repeat his feat this year. Alex Brundle is one of them. His move to GP3 follows two years in F2 (either side of a disappointing 2010 in British F3), and with it comes the bright lights of the European F1 circus.

Thanks to its place on the F1 bill, GP3 has already built itself a reputation for attracting some of the best young talents around (although the field is considerably weaker this year than in 2011), and to make matters even more difficult for Brundle, he has a third different single-seater in as many years to get used to.

Brundle has spent the early part of 2012 testing his Carlin GP3 machine

On the surface F2 and GP3 machines are not radically different. In 2011 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs qualified on pole at Silverstone in 1m51.190s in his GP3 car, while pole at the F2 meeting earlier in the year was 1m49.934s. But the cars require quite different approaches.

"The [GP3] car feels much less powerful, but it has considerably more aerodynamic grip," adds Brundle, whose father Martin started 158 grands prix during his racing career and also notched up a Le Mans 24 Hours win and the 1988 World Sportscar crown. "I think both are massively credible racing cars."

So why did he decide to make the move to GP3 with Carlin? "We had a good year in F2 last year - a couple of podiums, a pole, top Brit in the championship [in seventh] - so I wanted to move forward onto the F1 package this year," he says. "I think GP3 is the most competitive single-seater championship in Europe - there's not too much argument about that."

Brundle knows that qualifying - vital in all single-seater categories - is something he needs to get on top of in 2012.

"To be honest, that's the way junior single-seaters are moving: F3, F2, anything. You get your qualifying done and maximise the car on new tyres, and then you start the race and get pulled along with the pack. The reality is, you may only be three tenths [of a second] off, but that can put you down in eighth.

"When you've got a whole field that's within 1.5 seconds, getting that right is the difference between first and last. It's terrible and it's great, because it means that when you're eight tenths away as we are now, you can improve a small amount in terms of pace and move up the field a whole lot."

Brundle struggled to establish himself in British F3 with T-Sport in 2010 © LAT

Brundle backs up his argument by pointing towards Bottas's qualifying record from last year: "Last year Bottas qualified three times outside the top seven drivers, which demonstrates [that] everyone is a threat."

From speaking to Brundle, it's clear that he has an idea of where he is in the GP3 pecking order, and that often the first person to measure yourself against is your team-mate.

"The learning process is going well, probably running in an equal way to Will Buller - he's the other rookie in the Carlin team - and then about eight tenths behind Antonio Felix da Costa, who's in his third year," he adds.

Da Costa's lowly 13th position in the 2011 GP3 table does not tell the whole story. In a competitive field he won a reversed-grid race at Monza and put his Status GP car on the front row at the Nurburgring. Brundle and Buller will both find him a useful benchmark as they acclimatise their feet in GP3.

The Portuguese is becoming a serious contender after occasionally struggling in his first season in GP3, which could mean that his rookie team-mates should view this year as a building block to set the foundations for a challenge in 2013.

"I'm just going to maximise what is available to me this year and see how it goes," says Brundle. "Obviously my ambition is to be an F1 driver, so as long as it's reasonable to aim at that I'm going to go for that.

"I'm relatively happy with my progress through the tests and I think we're moving forward massively."

Part of the challenge will be getting the best out of the tyres, which, as in F1 and GP2, are supplied by Pirelli.

He sees GP3 as the perfect place to continue his learning experience in single-seaters

"The Pirelli tyre is a very interesting beast and has taken a bit of understanding, and continues to do so," says Brundle. "The tyre is peaky - that's the way it has been designed in order to prepare the drivers for GP2 and then eventually F1. The main issues we are having are in the cold temperatures, because the tyres have been made to run through the hot season in the summer.

"There has been a little bit of graining, and understanding that has been the difficulty. Working out how to get the maximum out of the tyre in a warm-up situation is the difficulty. Our race pace is fine - we're bang on it."

As well as getting to grips with GP3, Brundle is also racing in the European Le Mans Series in 2012 with the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan team. Some may consider that a distraction, but he believes the two series fit together well as a platform for success in motorsport.

"My ambition is Formula 1, but my aim is professional motorsport," he asserts. "The single-seater package is going for gold. Let's go to GP3, let's try and make an impression, let's try and become a Formula 1 driver - that's what I'm all about."

If last year's GP3 Series is anything to go by, then success in the 2012 championship will be a very helpful move towards F1, but Brundle knows he has a lot of work to do first.