For this season the DTR community will choose the “Driver Of The Week” after each round, to highlight a driver who did really well this week and get to know him better.
For round 1, Bogarovski got the most votes after a memorable week in Australia. We had the chance to interview the driver from the Netherlands and had some questions:
Welcome Bogarovski, congratulations on becoming the first “Driver Of The Week” of DTR!
Now, having competed in 65 races, you finally got your first win. How happy are you with it?
Thank you and yes, i’m very happy with it! It was my 65th race in DTR, but in 3 years of sim racing and a total of around 300+ races i’ve won a few times in other racing series like F2 or in GT Sport and scored many podiums in F1, but never a win, so yes it’s feels great to have finally won.
So you definitely have much experience which you showed during the races. You have qualified in P5 during a wet qualifying session. In the race you did a one-stopper going from Softs to Hards. How did you feel about the strategy because you definitely made it work. Talk us through your race from your perspective.
Well it was a bit of an odd night, because I wasn’t even sure that I was going to start the race actually. The commentator of the Division 3 race had some technical issues and during quali i was trying to talk him through options to get him set up. It seemed like it wouldn’t work, so in my mind i was thinking, i’m going to have retire on lap 1 in the pit lane so i can cover the Division 3 comms. But at the last moment we found a solution and he got it working, so i was finally able to focus on the race. The plan was to start on softs, switch to hards on the first possible Safety Car situation and then gain track position with the 2nd safety car situation and anticipate on late SC’s when they come.
I counted on a very early SC as we’ve seen that happening in other divisions, but here it didn’t happen until lap 10. That changed my plan a bit because my tyres started to drop off after 7 laps and i decided to come in on lap 8. I was in 4th place at that time and dropped back a few positions, but not too much. When that SC came out in lap 10 i moved up to p4, but found myself in a great position finding out that the two leaders didn’t pit, even though one of them started on mediums. That meant they always had to pit at some point while i didn’t have to anymore. When there was another SC in lap 17 i found it too early to switch to the soft tyre so i decided to stay out, but did move up to the leading position because they finally pitted. From there on it was just managing the tyres and defend the position. On fresher tyres Ralph and Scheiber were too quick so they passed me eventually, but when there was another late SC and Ralph decided to pit I knew I had a chance to win as Scheiber had 6 seconds of penalties and Ralph would have to overtake a few other cars first. At the restart with 3 laps to go my only worry was Ralph because he was going to be flying on those fresh softs while I was on 20 lap old hard tyres. I let Scheiber go since with his penalties he would never win. When Ralph closed in on the final lap it got very tense. I was only able to hold him off with a minimal margin, but just enough.
You definitely had a good week with getting the victory in Division 6 and a solid P4 in Division 5. Do you like the newly designed circuit in Melbourne and the handling of the new cars?
Yes, the track changes made it a lot better. The long straight after turn 6 all the way to turn 9 gives you the opportunity to overtake others, which i’ve done quite a few times this week. (Hi Brandonn 
). I like the car handling much more on this game compared to F1 2021, but it do feel it was better before the last game patch.
Races can get very hectic and everything can happen. Do you usually stay calm during races or does the pressure get to you every now and then?
With racing comes adrenaline, so i guess just like most other drivers I also have my moments of reacting a bit heated during races, especially when someone gets you in trouble. But that’s all just in the moment and is over a few seconds later. And often when you look back at it, it wasn’t that bad as it looked initially. Most races i’m not in the mix for top positions however and have to rely on making good tactical choices to get the maximum result, so you need to stay calm. It helps when you have someone else in the party that can advice you on a strategy call. During this race i got some good advice from Blackmamba, so i’d like to thank him for that.
Now with round 1 wrapped you probably have a rough idea how the season can develop for you. What is your target for this season in Division 5?
In Division 5 i’m on pace I belong to the second half of the grid. My teammate Nellboy is quicker than me on most tracks and could even fight for race wins on some days, so i’ll support him during races to make sure he gets the best possible result while I will try to get some points in the bag and as a team we will end as high as possible. I don’t know where we will end up, but the goal this season is to beat the Ferrari team and finish top 4 in constructors. Individually i’ll be happy with 10th overal, while my teammate is hopefully top 6.
Since i’m not the quickest of our Division you have to make the best out of situations and there’s a few races this season where there’s always loads of Safety Cars and DNF’s, and you have the chance at better results than normal. That’s where I aim to score big. One of them was Australia, but Singapore and Azerbaijan are two others that I usually do well, so hopefully we can see another podium on one of those tracks.
As for Division 6, I will occasionally reserve there when the opportunity comes up. No goal for there as I will not be on that grid weekly.
Besides of racing, you are a busy man within DTR. Tell us what you are doing in DTR if you are not on track at the moment.
I’m one of the owners of DTR and with that comes a lot work. It’s basically like a double fulltime job, sometimes even more. You have to be on top of everything as a team to make sure things go as planned. We’re very lucky that now more and more people are helping out in several roles, like coordinators, commentators, media guys, recruiters, moderators, or with our website. We started DTR in April 2021 and have grown into a community of around 300 people within no time and have 140 people racing weekly, that’s great, but there’s much more to come. Personally my time goes mostly into the overall organization and into data & development. I’m not gonna bore you with every single thing I do, but let me spoil a few things that we are working on for the coming period:
– Website updates (My DTR)
– Prizes
– More media coverage
– More race divisions
– Karting event
Our goal with DTR is to become on the biggest brands in sim racing. It’s a long road ahead, but looking at what we have already achieved in such a short time shows to us that we can and will reach our goals.
Bogarovski, thank you very much for your time. You definitely earned the “Driver Of The Week” award and we wish you all the best for your upcoming races and for the future of Delta T Racing.
