After a straight line test at Rockingham and a highly publicized demonstration run in Rotterdam, which ended badly as he crashed the car. Yesterday he had is first proper test in an F1 car when he completed 148 laps of the Italian Adria circuit, piloting a 2012 Scuderia Toro Rosso SRT7-Ferrari.
The day's running was completed in both damp and dry conditions, giving him plenty of opportunities to acquaint himself with an F1 car in both conditions. Verstappen was not going for times here, with this test clearly about bedding him in with an F1 and learning the procedures and processes of an F1 car and team.
After the test was completed Verstappen had this to say about it "I was looking forward to my first drive in a Formula 1 car on a proper race track and I really enjoyed it, It was a good opportunity to work with Xevi, who will be my race engineer next year, as well as having a chance to get used to all the buttons on the steering wheel. I think it went well and I can't wait to get back into a Formula 1 car as soon as possible."
His new race engineer for next year Xevi Pujolar also had this to say "Max started his run on Intermediates and got up to speed, making no mistakes. He was very focused and precise and learned quickly, without having to ask many questions. Once we were able to fit slicks, he got used to the car in the dry and built up his speed, while we tried various fuel levels, replicating both qualifying and race trim, doing a mix of short and long runs. For a first day, it was very impressive."
It seems both Max Verstappen and the Scuderia Toro Rosso team were happy with their day's running, with the Super licence likely to mean some Free Practice running later on this season as the next step in preparation for his highly publicized F1 debut next year.
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