Wednesday at Silverstone saw the Sauber F1 Team test and reserve driver Robin Frijns on track. The 21-year old Dutchman is pretty familiar with the Sauber F1 Team, as well as the Silverstone circuit, having raced there numerous times.
After driving a Formula 1 car for the first time last year at the Young Driver Days in Abu Dhabi, this is his second test with the team. The GP2 driver experienced perfect weather conditions and covered 72 laps at Silverstone today.
- Circuit: Silverstone / 5.891 km
- Driver: Robin Frijns (NL)
- Chassis / engine: C32.02 / Ferrari 056
- Mileage today: 72 laps
- Fastest lap: 1:34,236 min
Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering: “The initial running this morning focused around gathering further aero and tyre data with additional test instrumentation fitted to the car. The rest of the day was spent evaluating development aero and mechanical test parts, along with set-up work to optimise the car around the 2012 Construction tyres. Having driven with us before, Robin was quickly up to speed and did a solid job in the car, performing many additional data gathering tasks as well as providing valuable driver feedback. We lost some track time around midday due to a reliability problem, the cause of which is being investigated now. Robin will continue in the car tomorrow morning before Nico takes over in the afternoon session.”
Robin Frijns: “It was quite a busy day. We started with some aero tests this morning and did a lot of installation laps. In the afternoon we lost a bit of track time, but the crew sorted the car quite quickly. I was continuously in the car from 2.30pm until the end of the session. It was my first time driving a Formula 1 car on a high-speed track, as the Yas Marina circuit is a bit slower. It’s fun at such high speed and I got used to it quite quickly. Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel are always a bit difficult, so I had to adapt to that, which went quite well at the end. I drove a lot of laps on the hard tyres, which felt comfortable. With the medium tyres I didn’t feel as comfortable yet, so that is something I still need to work on. At the end of the day we did a lot of mileage and tested a lot of things. Working with the team was good fun. The boys are quite fast.”
What comes next: Tomorrow morning Robin Frijns will take to the track again, while Nico Hülkenberg will get into the car in the afternoon. On Friday Kimiya Sato (24/JPN) will drive a Formula 1 car for the very first time.
Subbed by AJN.