Albon admits the speed of F1 is 'a bit of a shock'
- Published on 19 Feb 2019 18:53
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- By: Fergal Walsh
Alexander Albon says that the speed of a Formula 1 car came as a little bit of a shock to him.
The Thai-British driver set 132 laps on Tuesday, the second most of any driver. Albon's fastest lap time was a 1:19.301, which placed him in fourth in the final standings for the day.
However, the 22-year-old's day got off to a shaky start as on his opening out lap in the morning, he spun at the exit of Turn 4 which put him into the gravel and delivered a short halt to Toro Rosso's morning programme.
"The morning was a little bit difficult, to be honest, I didn't want to think about it too much, and Kimi did it yesterday so that kind of reassured me a little bit," Albon said after the session. "It was okay, it was a good experience. The high-speed stuff is still new to me, it was a bit of a shock, but I'll get used to it.
"I did a filming day previously so it wasn't a total shock and we've been quite a lot of time in the simulator for this very reason. So the feeling was that I knew what the car could do, but once you have the G-Forces and you have the speed going, it does take a while.
"You know in your mind what you can do to the car, but doing it is a different story. It took a while to build up and there is some margin left but it felt okay. But these cars, there's so much grip, the braking, the feeling in general, it can't come to you straight away."
Albon's first outing in a Formula 1 car came at Toro Rosso's filming day last week. After setting 132 laps on Tuesday, he says that he could definitely feel the physical difficulties of driving the cars.
"It was a few laps today, I definitely felt it. But it was okay, I could already feel it coming in the morning, I was like 'it's going to be a little bit of a long day'. The guys blessed me with a couple of race runs, I said 'thanks for that!'. It was okay, I'll feel it tomorrow though, that's for sure."
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Replies (2)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I can only imagine. The way you can go around a track with these must be outright horrifying the first times (looking at the time Clarkson tested an F1 car, and that bloke has driven some mad rides before without much fright).
On another note: isnt' this car a beauty, both in terms of livery and design? Interesting to note that they too have that bump on the front as the sister car have. A shame about that silly wide front spoiler though.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
Yeah, it is a good looking car. Especially like the photos of it from the front slightly above. I think it's going to be a good season for them if the predictions from RBR that they can go through the season with 3 engines holds true. It's got to be a big step up from the lower formulas to the big leagues. The acceleration and the braking distance is mad! It looks like it's braking about half the distance to the corners than with the lower formulas. Would love to get a ride in an F1 car one of these days.