Kiwi Liam Lawson was glowing with joy at the end of his maiden run onboard an F1 car at Yas Marina, the F2 driver mightily impressed with the speed of AlphaTauri's AT02 machine.
Lawson was second fastest among the group of young drivers taking part in Tuesday's post-season test in Abu Dhabi.
Although Lawson was 1.3 seconds adrift from pacesetter and Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries, the 19-year-old putting 125 trouble-free lasp under his belt over the course of the day.
"What an amazing day, it’s incredible how unbelievably fast these cars are," enthused Lawson.
"I’ve obviously driven in the simulator before and when I’m there I always think that there’s no way that the car can actually be that quick in real life, but it really is.
"This has been something that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid so it’s just incredible and I’m really, really happy."
The F2 and DTM driver admitted to feeling a few butterflies when the moment came for him to take to the track and kick off his day.
"I was definitely nervous pulling out of the garage for the first time, I tried not to show it, but I definitely felt it.
"It took me a little while to get to full throttle but when I did I thought ‘holy moly that’s a lot of power!’
"The biggest difference is just the downforce, there’s significantly more than anything I’m used to.
"We worked on a lot of different things in the run plan today, both short and long runs with different tyres and one thing that was really cool and new to me was the live data.
"The ability to have the team update me as I’m out on track was really interesting, although you couldn’t make a mistake without them knowing!"
AlphaTauri regular driver Yuki Tsunoda who finished last Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix an impressive fourth and who was running on Tuesday onboard his team's mule car was on hand to dispense some advice to the Red bull junior.
"Getting feedback from Yuki too was also really great," said the Kiwi. "We’ve been teammates before, so it was good to get his understandings and learnings and it was nice to be back driving with him again.
"I really didn’t want to get out of the car today, it’s been amazing to get my first taste of F1."
AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost, a man with a keen eye for young talent, gave Lawson a big thumbs up after his maiden F1 test.
"I must say he did a very good job, finishing 125 laps without any issues and his lap time was very competitive," said the Austrian.
"He gave us good feedback throughout the day, we ran a lot of different set-ups with him and have gathered lots of really strong data.
"This will help us further with the general understanding of the car, whilst we have a new car next year, all the data collected today will nevertheless help us in 2022.
"Liam did a really great job today."
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