Toro Rosso technical director Jody Egginton says rookie Alexander Albon is already “exceeding expectations”.
The British-born Thai driver had never driven a Formula One car until Toro Rosso’s filming day at Misano.
He was handed the opportunity to get to grips with the car once again during last week’s four-day testing in Barcelona and will be back behind the wheel for the second round of testing next week.
Albon was fourth overall on Tuesday and he posted the second-fastest time on Thursday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Egginton has been pleasantly surprised by his exploits already and feels he is capable of enjoying a successful campaign. “He’d not driven a F1 car before,” said Egginton.
“He’s done reasonable amount of simulator work, which you can imagine. We did a big simulator programme with him, and he spent a lot of time with us.
“At the filming day he did a good job getting in, and here he’s been fantastic. I mean, the off he had on the install was partially engineering induced, it wasn’t directly his fault to be fair.
And after that we’ve got into the programme, he’s been great. “His progress in the places where he was quick initially and not quick enough is exactly as you’d expect.
“But in the end of the day he ticked every box, and some of his long runs, especially on the C2 compound, we thought he did a really good job.”
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