Clearly a man used to pressure then. Let’s take a step back and discuss the earlier stages in your career. In 2009 you signed for Arden International to race in GP2, and competed in the 2009-10 GP2 Asia Series, winning in Bahrain. And then quite incredibly, you won on your full GP2 debut in 2010 in Barcelona…
“[Smiles] Yeah. I think it’s always good to win in GP2, for sure. It’s because you win in GP2 that you get access to Formula 1. So I think it was quite good!”
It would be over a year before you won again, once again in the GP2 Feature Race in Barcelona. By then you’d swapped to relative newcomers Barwa Addax. Was it a tough choice leaving Arden, former Team’s Champions in Formula 3000 (the former name of GP2) at one time the team to beat?
“They were both very good teams, but…[pause]…after you have made your choice, that is the opportunity you have. And the opportunity is not always the same. These can change. In 2011 we had a great opportunity with Addax so we went there, and we won the team’s championship in GP2, so it was a great choice and a great year.”
Interestingly, your GP2 teammate in 2011 is also your Caterham teammate this year, Giedo van der Garde. How important is that in determining your pace this season?
“I’d say very. Giedo is a nice guy, and I think it is important to have someone you can work with, especially when you need to share information on how to improve the car.”
The pair of you were also racing against each other in Formula Renault 3.5 back in 2008 (the year van der Garde took the Renault 3.5 title). Looking back, that was quite a competitive period for the series. In 2009, the field boasted former-Toro Rosso F1 driver Jaime Alguersuari, current Marussia driver Jules Bianchi, and current Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo among others. At the time, did it occur to you that so many of you would make the F1 grade?
“I think it’s always very hard to expect the level of competition, especially when you are very young. You don’t have that kind of experience. I think you just try to prepare yourself as much as possible and give 100 percent of yourself from each weekend, and learn and improve yourself. When you are young, there are many new things that you need to learn and are new for you. I think you need to keep your mind open, grow up, learn everything you can as fast as possible, and give your best every weekend.”
I think it’s quite interesting that quite a few of the guys you were racing against back then – Duncan Tappy, James Walker, John Martin, Chris van der Drift, Julien Jousse – competed in some of the quirkier series that cropped up, like A1GP and Superleague Formula. Was this something that ever appealed to you?
“Well, all my career I’ve followed Renault, through Formula Renault 2.0, 3.5 and then GP2, so…I’m very happy about that decision. It’s a very good filière” – read ‘industry’ – “and it’s helping me to learn at every step.”
That ‘learning’ didn’t quite turn into a championship win. You finished third in the standings a few times in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 3.5, but the title always seemed to be out of reach…
“[Smiles] I think that to win a championship you need to…first you need the capacity to win it, but then you are never alone. In one championship there are always two, three, four drivers who can win it, and after that there are many other things. The work you do with your team is important. But I’m only 23 years old [laughs], so I still have many opportunities ahead.”
Let’s have a look at these opportunities then. We have the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, which will include updates to Caterham’s CT03 which you’re keeping quiet on at the moment! It’s a circuit you’ve always done well on (as well as winning the sprint race there during the 2009-10 GP2 Asia Series season, he also outqualified teammate Timo Glock at Sakhir last season). Does that give you a confidence booster going into the weekend?
“Bahrain will be very interesting because we get some updates. But it will be a tough race. We would love to optimise the car there and it will be…not a completely new car, but there will be some new pieces, so it will react a little differently to the car we are used to. So we will have to work a lot, and it will be a tough weekend, but I think everybody is very motivated. I think we should have a bit more potential than Shanghai.”
Fighting for regular points is going to be difficult in 2013, but do you have any goals for your first season with Caterham?
“Yeah, of course. I think you always need to have a goal, and our goal this year is to improve ourselves and improve our car. Caterham is still a young team in F1, so they need to improve, and this is the main goal. Then after, of course, depending on how we do this job, we will focus on the end of this season and next. But I think you need to focus on your main goal.”
Does a new line-up at Caterham help? There’s no Heikki Kovalainen this year*, no Vitaly Petrov, and Jarno Trulli is long gone too…
“I think every young team…F1 is very tough, and when you are a young team like Caterham or Marussia, you are fighting with teams like McLaren, who have been in F1 forever! So, of course, it’s very hard, and of course we need to get better. From my side, my job is to optimise the car I have every weekend and get everything I can from the car. For the moment we are looking on improving, working really hard to get the evolution put on the car, and to move forward.”
*Since we interviewed Charles, Caterham has announced that Heikki Kovalainen will be driving for the team again during free practice in Bahrain.
