NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Magnussen and Da Costa impress in Young Driver Test

Kevin Magnussen and Antonio Felix da Costa have both impressed with their handling of a McLaren MP4-27 and Red Bull RB8 respectively over the first two days of the Abu Dhabi Young Driver test.

Kevin Magnussen and Antonio Felix da Costa have both impressed with their handling of a McLaren MP4-27 and Red Bull RB8 respectively over the first two days of the Abu Dhabi Young Driver test.

Tewnty-year-old Dane Magnussen is the son of former grand prix driver Jan and was having his first experience of the Mclaren on track, having completed simulator work for the team. He set the quickest time (1:42.651) of the opening day before handing the car over to Oliver Turvey today. Turvey set third quickest overall time so far (1:43.176), with reserve driver Gary Paffett (1:43.407) sharing the car on both days to continue Mclaren's testing programme.

Portuguese Red Bull junior driver Antonio Felix Da Costa did 79 laps in the championship-leading Red Bull on the opening day of the test and ended up just six hundredths slower than Magnussen, then topped the second day of testing.

Edoardo Mortara (1:43.418) took over in the race-winning Lotus E20 after Nicolas Prost (1:44.194) handled the car on the opening day, concentrating on aero work on the hard compound Pirelli tyre.

Esteban Gutierrez (1:43.486) got more Sauber mileage under his belt after Dutch Formula Renault 3.5 champion Robert Frijns (1:43.775) drove the car on the first day.

"That was hard work!" Frijns said after completing 78 laps of Yas Marina. "I am really tired now and know I have to go and exercise more. In the afternoon I found it quite hard to understand the tyre compounds having only driven on Michelins before."

Frijns has a few more hours recovery time before he climbs aboard the Red Bull for the final day of the test!

Gutierrez's Tuesday afternoon programme mirrored that of Frijns on the first day, the Mexican admitting that he was not fully confident about pushing the Sauber in Turn 20, part of the twisty, technical final sector in Abu Dhabi.

Luiz Razia (1:44.691) did the first day of the test for Toro Rosso before handing over to Johnny Cecotto Jr (1:44.569), while Guido van der Garde (1:45.936) got another two days of F1 experience under his belt with Caterham.