d’Ambrosio happy with opening rounds amidst title fight

Jerome d’Ambrosio has described his opening few rounds of season five as “a great beginning to the championship” and attributes the close title fight to the unpredictability of the series and the fact that no one has yet had a reliable few rounds.

d’Ambrosio is second in the championship, one point behind BMW i Andretti’s Antonio Felix da Costa, after a podium in Ad Diriyah and a victory in Marrakesh, with an additional three points finishes keeping him at the sharp end.

With six different winners in the opening six races, the Belgian pointed out the fact that no one driver has yet had a clear run of clean finishes in the upper reaches of the standings and that the current qualifying format may also be playing its part.

“It’s been a great beginning to the championship,” said the Mahindra Racing driver. “No one has really been able to have six straight races without any issues to manage, partly due to the fact that the championship is hyper-competitive, if you’re one or two tenths off you really feel it in terms of position on the grid.

“For the guys that have been in group one since the beginning of the season it doesn’t help, I don’t think there’s any driver that going to fly away in the championship for that reason. The key has been to score points every race, even when you’re not at your best and don’t win, that’s going to be key for the rest of the season.”

With the threat of rain looming in the air for race day, d’Ambrosio is unsure about how it will affect proceedings around the differing nature of the Rome track.

“I’m not sure if the weather is going to play a role, but the challenge is putting things together when it matters. That’s always something that challenging, in terms of the track it’s a technical layout.

“There’s bumpy places and the jump in turn eight, which might be a challenge if it rains so there’s a couple of things that could mix things up. Attack mode also seems to be quite aggressive in terms of time lost.”