Williams F1 - Young Drivers Test Day Three

Driver: Susie Wolff
Chassis / engine: FW35-04 / RS27-5329/3
Location: Silverstone International Circuit, 5.891kms/ 3.66 miles
Objectives: Aero evaluations and pitstop practice
Weather: Dry and sunny
Air & track temps: 20-26ºC / 28-45ºC

Day three of the Williams F1 teams Young Driver Test would see Susie Wolff replace Daniel Juncadella on this final day. After completing an installation lap Susie would commence a day of aerodynamic work in the morning. She would be delayed by a red flag but upon it going green was back out continuing the aero work this morning. By mid morning Susie had set a best time of 1m:39.012 having completed eleven laps. After her first run she would be seen out of the car taking to her engineer as well as Valtteri Bottas. She would return to the track running on hard tyres.

Upon her return to the garage Susie would take the time learning about the telemetry that the drivers have access to. At midday Susie was now eighth fastest with a time of 1m:35.890 having completed twenty five laps. Susie would head back out for another short run prior to pitting again, having completed thirty one laps. After another short break Susie would head back out this time on medium tyres and she would improve her time with a 1m:35.093 to be sixth. We would see the race team arrive in the Williams garage as the team prepared for carry out pit stop practice after their lunch break. Susie would return to her pit seeing the team take a break for lunch.

After the break the team would commence their pit stop practice with Susie and the mechanics completing several quick stops. Susie had now completed sixty eight laps on her debut test. She had being lapping in the mid 1m:37s prior to her pitstop practice. Such was her performance on the day that she had made a good impression amongst other drivers.

Ferrari driver Massa said: "I think she was pretty good, she was pretty quick and that's really fantastic to see a lady driving Formula 1. I was really happy when I saw the lap times and pretty happy for her. It would be nice maybe a team pushing Susie's driving on the racing and for Formula 1 it would be very interesting for everybody."

As the day drew to a close Susie would be seventh with her best time remained unchanged from a 1m:35.093. She would complete her last run on hard tyres and pit again complete her first official test for the Williams F1 team. The team had completed twenty eight pit stops in the afternoon with Susie having completed eighty nine laps.

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Engineer: Susie did a great job for us today. We did some aero tests this morning while she familiarised herself with the car and then we moved onto some performance and development work with her. In the afternoon we combined some general running with live pitstop practice, which is an area we are keen to improve ahead of the next race. We made some good progress and Susie was good at stopping on the mark every time. Overall we have had a successful test, gathering lots of data to take back to the wind tunnel and have some experience to know what to expect from the tyres in Budapest.

Susie Wolff: It was fantastic today. The team did a great job getting me through the day, talking me through everything step by step. In hindsight it would have been good to run the new tyres later in the day after I’d had more time in the car as I don’t think I got the best out of the medium tyres. Physically it wasn’t easy, but it was what I was expecting. I was well prepared so it was completely manageable. My only problem was my seat as I was moving around a little. Doing the pitstops this afternoon was also really beneficial as there is a lot to think about coming into the stops. It was a fantastic experience.