Senna keen to focus on driving

Bruno Senna has no desire to make a habit of swapping his race suit for mechanics overalls as he did in Japan at the weekend.

Other than a brief highlight when he managed to qualify his Renault in the top 10, Senna struggled throughout at Suzuka. It was nip and tuck as to whether he would make qualifying after an accident in final practice which left his team with just two hours to rebuild the car.

“The team did a great job putting the car back together in such a short time after my mistake,” said Senna.

“I helped with the rebuild, even bleeding my own brakes, and I did a good job as the pedal was firm. I was then happy to deliver a good result for them by getting into Q3.

“As a team we are working well together, and I’m learning a lot from the engineers and mechanics with every race that passes.”

It was some words of advice from team boss Eric Boullier, however, that sharpened Senna’s focus after his practice shunt and a slide into the gravel the day before.

“In qualifying I had to ‘remove my brain’, as Eric told me, to ‘just drive without thinking about it,’ and that’s what I did,” added Senna.

The race, though, was a different matter as Senna suffered due to a lack of downforce, which is critical on a high-speed circuit such as Suzuka.

Now, Senna has two reasons to make amends heading into Sunday’s Korean GP as last year’s inaugural event was a disaster for him at a time when he was with Hispania.

“I had suspension failure in practice and then I had a very difficult race with the rain,” he said.

“It was a very difficult way to learn a new track.”