Sahara Force India enjoyed a fruitful first day of the young driver test as Paul di Resta and James Calado set the second and the fourth fastest timings respectively, here.
Calado, the British GP2 driver, got the feeling of an F1 car for the first time when he drove in the morning session.
His fastest lap time came in 1:33.986, which was fourth best of the day.
“Getting to drive a Formula One car was a lifetime ambition and even coming to the track this morning was quite emotional. It was a completely different experience from what I am used to in GP2 but it took only a few laps to get a hold of it,” 24-year-old Calado said. “I was able to set some sensible lap times and to give quite accurate feedback on the tyres within 10 laps, which was quicker than I expected. I am here to do the best job possible and hopefully we will learn a few things from my work that can help Paul and Adrian in the rest of the season.” Paul took over the testing duties in the afternoon session and added 59 laps to 27 of Calado.
He briefly held the quickest lap time of the day — a 1m 33.774s on soft tyres — only to see his effort eclipsed by McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen, who topped the charts at the end of the day. “The focus of the test is to help Pirelli get all the data necessary to understand the new tyres.”
