Big first day in the FIA F3 car with Jenzer Motorsport on the first day of testing.
The morning session was very wet, so there was plenty for me to come to learn with the differences in the car, driving style and tyre whilst also in wet conditions. The car is bigger, heavier and much more powerful than the Euroformula Open F3, so it was a real learning experience. Throughout the session I became more and more conformable with the car and I was pleased with the first outing.
The afternoon session was dry, so I got my first taste of the capabilities of the car. It is amazing and incredibly physical to drive.
Across the session we used 3 sets of tyres and on the first I developed the feel for the car and set a 1:24.1. On the second set I was able to put into practice some of the different driving techniques which my engineer Poll has been working on with me during the day and I was very happy to take over a second off my best time to set a 1:22.9.
With the Pirelli tyre, you need to have a cool down lap after each push lap, so there is a very different mindset required, but also it makes it very busy on track with many drivers on different types of laps. On the third set of tyres I encountered traffic on each of my push laps which meant I wasn’t able to improve my time.
Overall, it has been an amazing first day and I have made some very good progress in that time with a great deal of new things to learn.
Thank you to the team for the day and I am very much looking forward to tomorrow with more progress the aim.
