Aitken eager for more F1 time after first test

GP3 racer Jack Aitken, ART, Renault Formula 1 academy

Renault Academy member and GP3 racer Jack Aitken says that he's keen to get more experience of Formula 1 in the near future.

The 22-year-old British-Korean driver enjoyed a full day behind the wheel of a 2012-spec Lotus E20 at the Jerez circuit in Spain last week. He successfully completed more than 200km of running on Wednesday.

"I want to do it again!" he told Autosport magazine afterwards.

"I had some acclimatisation to get to grips with the car, and we did a few shorter runs, longer runs," he explained. "We had a couple of different tyre compounds to use, fuel loads and so on.

"It was good, we got through a lot of stuff," he said, adding that the team had been happy with his input.

"I was quite pleased because I managed to get up to speed really quickly. Even quicker than I expected myself.

"The team took me into everything really well," he continued. "They prepared me as best as they could and were really nice about the whole thing."

Aitken's performance at Jerez received a warm welcome from Cyril Abiteboul, Renault Sport Racing's managing director.

GP3 racer Jack Aitken gets Renault F1 test

"It was pleasing to see Jack Aitken get his maiden outing in in the 2012 spec Renault V8 powered E20 Formula 1 car on Wednesday in Jerez," he said.

"Jack has been developing well throughout his time with the Renault Sport Academy," he added. "This is a real milestone in his driving career."

Carlos Sainz has been confirmed as joining Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault F1 race team next season. That means there is little chance of Aitken getting a Grand Prix seat any time soon.

Instead, Aitken will be focussed on his GP3 campaign with ART. He won in Hungary and is currently in second place in the championship. He is 41 points behind his team mate George Russell with two rounds to go.

"I've got a round at Jerez in a couple of weeks and there's still a championship to fight for," Aitken noted. "As much as I would love to think about when I can next get into another Formula 1 car, it has to be on the back burner for me."

Russell himself has also been getting his first taste of Formula 1. He took part in two days of in-season testing with Mercedes at the Hungaroring in August.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.