Test junior drivers!

[steffforno]

Davide Valsecchi topped the times for Lotus on the final day of Formula 1's young driver test in Abu Dhabi. The Italian, who won the GP2 title with DAMS this year, posted a time of 1m42.677s that was just 0.002 seconds quicker than Antonio Felix da Costa's best overall time on Wednesday for Red Bull. McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was second fastest at the Yas Marina Circuit, 0.150s behind Valsecchi. Magnussen was back in the car after topping the timesheets on the opening day. McLaren sporting director Sam Michael praised Magnussen's performance after the test, which was the young Dane's maiden Formula 1 outing. "His pace, consistency and engineering feedback were all excellent," said Michael. "Given his performance, he certainly didn't look like a guy who had never turned a wheel in a modern F1 car before the start of this week." Magnussen drove the car in the afternoon, while Oliver Turvey was in charge of testing duties in the morning. The Briton was fifth quickest. Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez finished in third position after completing 80 laps. A place behind him was Red Bull's Robin Frijns, who returned to action following his outing with Sauber on Tuesday. Luiz Razia returned to the wheel of the Toro Rosso he drove on the opening day to post the sixth quickest time of Thursday's session. The Brazilian, however, was running a fever and struggled during the day, although he still managed to complete his programme. American Alexander Rossi was slowest for Caterham after having to finish his day early due to oil on the garage floor when he returned to the pits after his 14th run. "That meant I didn't have the chance to do any performance runs and I'm sure if I did, my laptimes would have been close to the race drivers, but issues like that are just one of those things," said Rossi. "They'll take a proper look at what caused the problem and I'm sure it won't affect the team's preparations for Austin or Brazil."






1Davide Valsecchi Lotus-Renault 1'42”677 86
2Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes + 0"150 51
3Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari + 0"416 80
4Robin Frijns Red Bull-Renault + 0"556 53
5Oliver Turvey McLaren-Mercedes + 0"927 44
6Luiz Razia Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 2"609 68
7Alexander Rossi Caterham-Renault + 3"808 85

[pino]

I do hope he will get a 3rd driver role in a big Team. The boy has a great talent and Italy needs a seat in F1 soon !

[steffforno]

I think too

[gloomyDAY]

Gary Paffett is young?

Can someone explain the young driver rules?

[heliocastroneves#3]

I hope Robin Frijns goes to F1, The Netherlands doesn't only a need a driver in F1 but also after all those years a successful one finally...

[gm99]

Gary Paffett is young?

Yeah, a bit ironic to call it young drivers test when you have Paffett and Nicolas Prost who are both 31 (same age as Alonso who has been in F1 for 11 years), while the reigning world champion is 25.

[I am evil Homer]

Paffett has also been shown to be average by two superior talents in Turvey and Magnusson. Would love to see Kevin in a third McLaren.

[AndyL]

Paffett has also been shown to be average by two superior talents in Turvey and Magnusson. Would love to see Kevin in a third McLaren.

We don't know that. There are two things going on at this test. The team are testing new drivers, and the experienced test driver is testing the car. We don't know how comparable the car configuration, fuel load etc. are between those two scenarios.

[keysersoze]

I realize the teams were testing themselves as much as drivers, so the actual time each set may mean less than if they were competing on a race weekend, but it's fun nevertheless to extrapolate something about driver talent. Here's my take:

Valsecchi was the most impressive, jumping into the car and on his only day posting the fastest time in the 3rd fastest car. He was 1.4 seconds down on Kimi's qualifying time, and .9 from Grosjean.

Both Van der Garde and Gutierrez were only a second from, Kovalainen and Perez's qualifying time, respectively, but since both have had significant seat time with those teams, I have to say DV was more impressive, though I was impressed with these two as well.

Magnussen was the fastest all week, by just .026, yet was 2 seconds down on Hamilton's best, and 1.4 down on Button. Still, excellent job.

da Costa was 1.7 from Vettel and Webber. Pretty solid.

Cecotto Jr was 1.8 from Ricciardo, but only .5 from Vergne. He looked vastly improved this past season racing for Barwa Addax, and I'd take him over Razia, who had two days in the car and was still slower.

Frijn got to drive both the RB8 (.4 slower than do Costa) and the Sauber (.7 slower than Gutierrez). I rated him in the bottom half of this field--what do I not get about him?

[truefan72]

the young driver test is a joke
1. some of the drivers as mentioned above are not too young
2. there really is no real driver testing going on, but rather car testing for the remainder of the season. This was nothing more than a masked late season test for the teams, many of which chose to test new developments for the car. And therefore I read nothing into the times and come away with absolutely on idea about the quality of the bunch or their future in F1.