McLaren reserve drive Lando Norris has continued his practice on Tuesday for Abu Dhabi Pirelli tyre test. The former youngest ever FIA F3 champion driver and recent runner-up of Formula 2 completed no less than 136 laps and set the sixth-fastest time of the day at Yas Marina Circuit.
“I think this was the most laps I’ve ever done in a day, so it was good. I got though a lot of the things I needed to, such as longer runs – which I haven’t done much of so far – so considering all that, I don’t feel too bad.” Norris said.
“I haven’t really felt the degradation of the tyres before, so that was one of the biggest things I wanted to get through. I’ll have a bit, more experience for next year now, of tyre drop-off and things like that. I also wanted to put a few other things together, such as practice starts and giving feedback.
“It did feel a bit different today, realising that a lot of the stuff we did was for my own good and things that will really benefit me a lot next year.
“I’m now trying to get everything based around me rather than the other drivers like in the past as test driver, so it definitely did feel a bit different. I really wanted to focus on trying to make it the best I could for me, so it was useful.” The Brit added.
McLaren sporting director Gil de Ferran said that he was happy with Norris’s start to a clean test day. The Brazilian also added he’s looking forward to having Carlos Sainz drive McLaren’s car for the first time on Wednesday.
“For us, today was the first day of our 2019 programme successfully completed. We had a clean day and accomplished all of our objectives, including several longer runs.” Ferran said.
“Our focus was not only collecting tyre information, but for the first time the progamme was geared towards Lando as our main priority, rather than the supporting role he has played as test and reserve driver so far.
“We’re looking forward to having Carlos drive our car for the first time tomorrow.” Ferran added.
Carlos Sainz. (Source:www.dailyexpress.com)
The Spaniard Carlos Sainz, meanwhile, he is to drive a McLaren F1 car for the first time on Wednesday’s Abu Dhabi Pirelli tyre test.
