Lucas Auer admitted to feeling much more confident behind the wheel of the VJM10 during Wednesday’s second day of the in-season test at the Hungaroring, with the Austrian finishing seventh fastest.
The twenty-two-year-old once again shared the driving duties with the Sahara Force India F1 Team with Nikita Mazepin, and drove in the morning session in Hungary, completing 49 laps and setting a best time of 1:19.242s, which was 2.118 seconds off the ultimate pace set by Sebastian Vettel.
Auer said he was impressed by the team during the test, and he felt he was able to maximise his time on track throughout the two days at the Hungaroring.
“It was a good session and I believe we managed to stick to our run plan and get all the data that the team wanted,” said Auer. “I felt pretty good in the car this morning: I had a good night’s sleep and I felt a lot more confident compared to my first time in the car yesterday.
“The team helped me so much and I was very impressed by the work of everyone: they had a lot of data from the race weekend, of course, and it was interesting to see how they used it.
“There is so much attention to detail and everyone made sure the instructions were clear so we were able to maximise our time.”
Auer was thankful to Force India for giving him the opportunity to test at the Hungaroring, and he admitted the whole experience was an eye-opener for him. He now returns to the DTM Series feeling that he has learned a great deal, and he hopes to put what he has learned to good use on the race track.
“Experiencing Formula 1 has been great,” said Auer. “There is so much speed and the cars have so much downforce.
“You have to train your eye to be quick because everything happens faster – it’s a very interesting way of driving and you have to take care of a lot of settings on your steering wheels while pushing the car hard.
“It’s a real challenge. I feel every new car you drive teaches you something as a driver because you need to adapt to it. I’ll see in the next races what I have learnt from this.
“I’d like to thank the team once more for these two half days – it was a pleasure to drive the VJM10 and work with everyone.”