Aitken says Renault backing gives him edge over GP3 rivals

Reigning Eurocup champion Aitken joined the French manufacturer this year alongside Oliver Rowland, Louis Deletraz and Kevin Jorg, the latter also racing in GP3 this year.

Alongside the duo, GP3 also has three Ferrari juniors in Charles Leclerc, Antonio Fuoco and Giuliano Alesi, Haas protege Santino Ferrucci, McLaren's Nyck de Vries and Honda's Nirei Fukuzumi.

"It does give us an edge, for one thing my fitness has come on quite a lot this year and that's because they have a dedicated facility at Renault and they push us quite hard," Aitken told Motorsport.com.

"But then again, there are eight drivers in the field that are backed by a F1 team so it's quite a lot of us and I'm sure they do similar things. I think it's one of the most competitive grids I've ever seen.

"It's a relatively small group [at Renault], at the moment it's just me and the other three.

"Having Kevin [Jorg] and Ollie [Rowland] at the same paddock just makes it quite nice as to an extent we can help each other out, work together a little bit and Renault have been quite supportive so far in doing what they can to help our knowledge and education."

GP3 "a lot less forgiving" than Formula Renault

When asked about the differences between Formula Renault and GP3, Aitken outlined the lack of track time in the latter, which makes it difficult to recover from a slow start to a weekend.

"I think the biggest difference is there is a lot less track time," said Aitken.

"You only have qualifying on Saturday so it's a lot less forgiving in terms of if you're not up to speed quick and you usually can't recover it later in the weekend.

"Getting used to the Pirelli tyres and stuff like that is obviously very different as well, but the biggest thing is you have to be really on it from the first session."

After stalling on the grid of the season opener at Catalunya, Aitken scored points five times in the next six races.

However, with a top finish of fifth, he only sits 12th in the standings.

"[The start of the year was] pretty poor," he admitted. "We've had some bad luck - I mean, everybody says that, but we lacked a bit of consistency early on.

"In Barcelona we were a bit unlucky with some clutch problems at the start.

"In Austria and Silverstone things didn't really come together in the qualifying, so that put us on the back foot, but we've usually had quite good pace when you can get it together.

"We're getting better and better as each race goes by, and there is a lot of the championship still to go, so I'm not too worried yet."