Gasly labels test day a 'mega experience'

©RedBull

Bahrain's second and final day of the year's first in-season F1 test saw Pierre Gasly take over from Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull Racing.

The young Frenchman's workload was consequential as a result Tuesday's lost mileage. Despite a mechanical issue that resulted in a spell in the garage mid-afternoon, Gasly branded his first outing in the team's 2017 RB13 a "mega experience".

"It was great to be in a Formula 1 car again. It’s always really exciting, especially in the new F1 cars, which are so much quicker than last year’s," said the junior bull of his 65 laps behind the wheel.

"It was a pretty busy programme this morning mostly because of the time lost yesterday. There were a lot of aero tests and some long runs, so we achieved quite a lot this morning.

"Unfortunately we had a mechanical issue at the end of the morning that stopped us a bit earlier than we wanted and we missed some running time in the afternoon.

"However, apart from that it was a mega experience. It always feels amazing to drive one of these cars.

"Now I head to Japan for the first race of the Super Formula Championship, which I’m really looking forward to."

Red Bull Racing's senior projects engineer Jeff Calam weighed in on Pierre Gasly's day.

"Unfortunately, we had a technical issue with the car around lunchtime, which proved quite complex to remedy," said Calam.

"However, the boys did a superb job to get the car back out with just under an hour to go and we spent the remainder of the session just gaining as much information as we could.

"Pierre did a very good job for us today, especially as this was his first experience of the car and with the limits on his track time.

GALLERY: All the action from the Day 2 in-season testing at Bahrain

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