Senna ready for 'unique' Mondello.

Having lost his Lloyds TSB Insurance British F3 International Series championship lead to team-mate Mike Conway at the last round of the series at Pau, Bruno Senna is aiming to get the lead back this weekend at Mondello Park after qualifying on pole and in sixth for the two races.

Saturday's first qualifying session was held in wet conditions and Senna was the quickest man on track for most of the session.

"The first session was pretty good, I basically dominated the whole time," Senna told Crash.net Radio. "Maybe I had half a lap on P2 so that was pretty good. I knew if it rained I would be competitive, and that worked well with our strategy as I got many clean laps runs before and after the red flag so I guess that was pretty good, it couldn't be better."

Mondello Park is a very different circuit from those encountered elsewhere in the championship calendar, and despite his pole Senna doesn't list the track amongst his favourites.

"I think it's unique because you don't drive in such conditions anywhere else," he said. "I'm not saying it's a bad circuit, but you find the characteristics here like the different types of surface and also the camber changes as there are here anywhere else.

"It's just different and it's good to learn some techniques and learn some things about different grips but I think for the Formula Three car it's better to have a quicker circuit or if you go to a slower circuit it must be a proper street circuit."

Heading into the last race meeting of the series Senna had been leading the points, but now he has a seven point deficit to make up to Conway.

"Basically Mike had a good weekend and I had a bit of a struggle with luck in the qualifying sessions, I was always blocked by someone or something," explained Senna. "The first qualifying session wasn't too bad as I was starting P6 but in the second qualifying I didn't get any clear laps and my quickest lap which put me P11 was an aborted lap where I lost 1.2 seconds from myself in the last corner so I could have done much better.

"Due to the conditions it was a good weekend as I got as many points as I could, I had very good races, I learned a lot, about driving and about car control, and for sure it made me a better driver so I think that's what happens. If you have 40 points to be played in the races then you cannot afford to do any mistakes but everyone has their bad weekends. Maybe Mike will have his soon."

For the second qualifying session at Mondello Senna's Raikkonen Robertson Racing squad left it late before sending him out on the drying track and the Brazilian was unable to get a good set of clear runs.

"We got very bad runs with both sets of tyres, we got in the middle of the traffic or had yellow flags and everything so I got always a good first sector but never finished a lap," he said. "I think I got maybe one lap which was clear, and I made a small mistake and it was my quickest lap but I wanted on the next lap to correct the mistake but then I didn't have it so it's a bit complicated but I think P6 is not too bad considering what happened before. I was struggling on Friday in testing in the dry, today I felt the car much better, and it went much quicker as well and I could have gone quickest."

With a sixth position start in the second race and team-mate Conway ahead in third position. "I'm just trying to score as many points as I can so I want to gain at least one position at the start and go to the first corner and see what happens," said Senna. "I think this is a very difficult track to overtake as well, even though it's slow you cannot go very close to the car in front so I'll just have patience and wait for people to make mistakes and enjoy the opportunities."