Jak Crawford got his first taste of a Formula 1 car at the Red Bull Ring before taking part in the Canadian Grand Prix, with more appearances ahead of him later this season.
The American is part of Aston Martin’s young driver development program and drove the 2022 car in Austria on Wednesday after joining the team ahead of this season. Aston Martin, who completed more than 400km of running in a day longer than the Grand Prix distance, said the 19-year-old adapted quickly to the car, with Crawford admitting it was a special experience.
“It was amazing,” Crawford told RACER. “I mean, you can tell right away. The steering feel is a little different. The first thing I noticed right away was that there was too much downforce and too much front end. As soon as I turned the wheel, it went everywhere. I explained it to everyone like increasing the sensitivity of the mouse to very high. And that’s exactly what it felt like.
“But I had an amazing day. Obviously the biggest thing was the high speed and braking. Overall, it was downforce. So there are a lot of things to get used to. Also, the wheels and everything are a little more complicated. But once I actually tried it, I got used to it and had a lot of fun with it.”
Crawford flew to Canada immediately after testing, arriving in Montreal on Thursday to continue learning for the Grand Prix weekend, and despite racing in F2 for seven of the next eight F1 weekends, he is hoping to get more track time in the AMR22 at a later date. year.
“The biggest goal was to get comfortable in the car as quickly as possible and drive as many laps as possible. “We did that,” he said. “Of course in Austria we always worry about the weather. So we tried to do everything very quickly in the morning and just focus on driving and trying to perform more.
“But it never actually rained. It was truly amazing. So I was able to do some longer runs in the afternoon and test the tires and everything.
“I want to get back in the car soon. I think we’ll have more opportunities later this year. So I hope they come soon. Obviously the European races are busy at the moment so we are very busy on the F2 side as well. “We try to participate in the simulation as much as possible, but it’s obviously been a very busy few months.”
