Frederik Vesti was ecstatic after completing his maiden FIA Formula 1 World Championship test with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team during the post-season test in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
As one of Mercedes’ sim drivers, the Danish driver was called up to run the young driver side of the test, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton sharing the driving duties in the Pirelli tyre test side, with all drivers running the W13 for the final time.
Vesti completed one hundred and twenty-four laps of the Yas Marina Circuit on Tuesday, and he hopes the opportunity will help him progress with the next stage of his career, which will see him move from ART Grand Prix to Prema Racing for his second season of FIA Formula 2 in 2023.
“My first test in an F1 car has been the most incredible day, no words can truly describe how awesome it was!” Vesti is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com. “I want to thank Mercedes for giving me this opportunity.
“Driving 260kph through the high-speed corners and experiencing 5G in the neck… the forces a Formula 1 car produces are remarkable. I’ve done 124 laps today learning the car and running on different compounds, so a massive amount of driving.
“To get this opportunity has been hugely important and will help with my next step in Formula 2 as well as my work in the F1 sim. Hopefully I’ll be driving an F1 car again soon and a big thank you to Mercedes for the chance.”
“He had a faultless day” – Andrew Shovlin
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director, was pleased with the way Vesti performed across the day in Abu Dhabi, feeling he put in a faultless performance from start to finish.
With Russell and Hamilton focusing on Pirellis tyre testing, Mercedes gave Vesti a different programme to run, and it was a good opportunity for the Dane to drive a Formula 1 car and compare it to how it feels in the simulator.
“We had George and Lewis splitting the running in one car today while Fred was driving the other car all day,” said Shovlin. “George was in the car this morning and Lewis then took over this afternoon.
“Fred has been doing a lot of simulator work for us over the past year or so, but today was his first opportunity to see how the real car compares to the virtual one. He had a faultless day, managed to avoid any mistakes and looked to have had a lot of fun.
“As Pirelli also supplied the 2023 tyres for the young driver’s car, we were also able to accelerate our learning by running through a programme with Fred. Overall, it was a successful test and we’ve covered nearly 1,500 kilometres. It’s been a useful day collecting a lot of data that we can now analyse ahead of next year.”
