British racer Dan Ticktum was pleased with his progression during his first day of Formula 1 testing with Red Bull.
The 19-year-old had been hoping to gain enough superlicence points to be in contention for the Toro Rosso seat this season but fell short after losing the European Formula 3 championship to Mick Schumacher.
As a result, he is driving in Super Formula in 2019 but finally got his big opportunity on Wednesday in Bahrain and was instantly surprised by just how complex an F1 car is.
“I learned a lot today and my first time in a modern F1 car was a big step,” Ticktum was quoted by PlanetF1.
“I think the biggest thing was learning the procedures. There’s a lot of settings to use, a lot to do on the steering wheel, even on a push lap, which isn’t the case in the junior formula.
“That was quite a lot to take in at the start – but I got used to it pretty quickly.
“It was also interesting having a garage full of people. It brings home that there’s a massive responsibility on the driver to deliver not just for himself and his engineers but for a whole team.”
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Once settled though, he would go on to amass a strong 135 laps in the Red Bull with the ninth best time of 1m30.856s.
“I think we gathered some really good data today, which is obviously the most important part of the test,” he continued.
“We did some long runs and I had a good opportunity to gain an understanding of how these tyres work.
“All in all, I’d say the test went well today.”
