HRT driver Bruno Senna says that he can't wait to get started in Formula One, despite the problems he is likely to suffer with the nascent Spanish team, saying that he is thankful that he has finally made it into the sport after so many false starts.
Senna signed for the then-Campos team some months ago, but has faced an uncertain winter, with firstly the team needing an internal buyout in order to simply finance their first year in the sport, and then Senna facing pressure to find extra sponsor money in order to confirm his seat.
This followed his 2009 pre-season, when he was in line for a Honda drive before the Japanese manufacturer withdrew, and Ross Brawn chose to stick with Rubens Barrichello after the new owner completed his buyout.
But he was finally confirmed on the entry list last week and after arriving in Bahrain, the Brazilian driver, nephew of the late three-time F1 champion Ayrton Senna, says that he is finally enjoying life as an F1 driver.
"I am enjoying it already," Senna beamed on Wednesday at the Sakhir track, "It's the start of a dream come true for me.
"I have had a pretty tough year so far, starting from the end of 2008 all the way to this year, where things have got there only to be taken away. It was starting to go that way this year and it was hard to accept because it's one thing when you do something wrong and things go wrong – [like] if I am not quick enough, if I make a mistake on the track – I lost my chance.
"It's another thing when everything is outside your control and it veers off in a direction that you just can't recover. I'm very glad to be here and very thankful to be here."
He added that he has been worried on the run up to the start of the season that he was set to lose his drive with the team, with the team facing well-publicised financial issues.
"[Before the buyout] I was very low on expectation that the team was going to happen because we had spent so much time trying to be sold, trying to be bailed and this and that," Senna mourned.
"And they did a really good job considering the timetable they had. The team, Colin and everyone that came in and everybody that was there, worked 24/7 – they made an extra day in the week to manage to get the car here. And they are still going flat out, so the hard times are not over."
He also added his thoughts to the increasingly bitter row over the pace disparity between the established teams and the three newcomers. HRT themselves will run their car for the first time in first practice on Friday.
"I've been racing in the Le Mans Series with cars that are two to 20 seconds a lap slower," he shrugged when asked whether the lack of pace in the new teams might cause problems for the frontrunners.
"It's perfectly possible to be with traffic if you are in a faster car. The only thing you need is for the drivers all to respect each other. It's not a problem."
He added that overall he was feeling good ahead of his F1 debut, despite the added pressure of his famous surname.
"I feel pretty good, actually. I don't mind [the attention] at all," he grinned, "I always had huge weight, huge pressure since the beginning.
"At my first race in Formula BMW I had raced nothing before and I had the TV crew from the biggest TV [channel] in Brazil around me all the time and people expecting.
"You know, when I tested the car for the first time at Snetterton in 2004 there were people there saying to me 'it's like this', it's always been like this, so I have learned how to deal with it. And now it's much easier because I have experience."
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