Alexander Albon says he is being helped by Toro Rosso ‘s experience of handling so many rookie F1 drivers as he readies himself for the big task.
Out of all the rookie drivers starting in the 2019 season, Albon was the only driver without any prior experience of driving the F1 car, coming into the two Barcelona pre-season tests. A late addition to the Toro Rosso line-up did not help his cause either.
The team announced Daniil Kvyat well ahead which helped the Russian to drive the car in the Abu Dhabi Pirelli tyre test in 2018 but with Albon only named as a Toro Rosso driver on the Monday after the grand prix, it made it difficult to draft him in.
The Thai racer had to wait until the filming day prior to the Barcelona pre-season test to not only get his first chance in a F1 car but also of the STR14. In the two tests though, Albon completed 489 laps – being sixth on the overall list of lap count.
With a lot to still learn, Albon credited Toro Rosso’s experience of handling so many F1 rookie drivers which he reckons is helping his cause. “Its been a good relation with the team so far,”said Albon, when asked by FormulaRapida.net.
“Toro Rosso are usually the team with a lot of rookies, if you look at it statistically, so they really understand what the driver needs to get upto speed [with things], especially in terms of speed with obviously the driving, but also the other information has been really good.
“The feedback they have given me has been really-really useful. Of course, it just doesn’t apply to the circuit, it is everything with media responsibilities and all that.” Talking about his first F1 winter test, he says he expected a lot of work, but was still surprise with things.
“I imagined it this way,” he started. “I think you just have to be as prepared as possible. I knew kind of what was to go into it and in that sense, it didn’t feel alien coming into Day 1 in Barcelona, with all the things one needs to do.
“In terms of the winter, there was a lot of training, I did a lot of preparations. A lot of driver books [to go through], I couldn’t believe that even the steering wheel pages would be that big. But it was OK, it was quite nice to have that period.
“It helped me to get upto the speed of the car, learning even just from the engineering point of view [if not driving]. Obviously, there’s a lot of work that goes behind it, so it is good to get some knowledge in before the tests.”
Toro Rosso will be helped a lot more by Red Bull Racing from 2019 onward with both the teams using the same Honda engine. The team management expressed happiness over the work done by Albon and also Kvyat where they completed 935 laps.
When asked about the car, Albon said he felt good with the baseline straightaway and after that, it was just fine-tuning the missing pieces. He felt the car was already good from Day 1 and so it wasn’t like they had to take a ‘huge step’ forward in the days to follow.
Talking about his debut in Australia, Albon admitted that it still feels surreal. “I still don’t really believe it,” he said. “I think it won’t hit me until I get there, but it is exciting. I am sure the FP1 will be a bit of an eye opener but I am excited.”
Additional reporting by Arnau Vinals
