Louis tops the F2 times in Abu Dhabi testing
Louis Delétraz completed his 2017 season in scintillating form yesterday as he emerged from the FIA Formula 2 Championship’s end of season test in Abu Dhabi by topping two of the sessions and never finishing outside the top five in the others.
The 20-year-old joined the MP Motorsport squad at the three-day Yas Marina test and was immediately on the front-running pace as he completed 148 laps and drove 821.9 competitive kilometres.
He finished P3 in Thursday’s morning session, before heading the times in the evening. He went even faster on Friday as he finished P1 in the morning and P2 in the evening. The ADS Securities-sponsored driver then completed Saturday’s final sessions in P4 and P5 respectively.
His best lap – a 1m 48.282s – was good enough to secure the third fastest time across the entire test.
“I’m completely thrilled with how everything has gone because this is the start of our work for 2018 and I could use all of my F2 experience from this year to attack,” Louis explained.
“I was strong every time I went out in the car and there was always a good lap time and position. I was one of the quickest cars over one lap and also on the race simulations. That was mega for me!”
The Swiss driver was particularly pleased with how quickly he got up to speed in the MP Motorsport car and he feels his impressive times in Abu Dhabi show he’s successfully addressed one of the issues that sometimes restricted his F2 progress this year.
“The 2017 season wasn’t the easiest for me in terms of results and my qualifying pace was something I wanted to work on,” he said. “Each time I got in the car this week, I didn’t need two, three or four laps to go quick. I went ‘boom’ on my first lap, the time was there and we were on top.
“That was very important and a big step for me as I look towards 2018. Being the most consistent car of the entire test and being able to do some good work with the team to fix any issues quickly has given me a massive amount of confidence.”
Louis has described his positive Abu Dhabi test as his “strongest outing in an F2 car” and he’s now fully focused on doing all he can to build on that during the winter months and an anticipated return to the series next year.
He said: “I think we can be very happy to end 2017 like this. Now we have to analyse everything and carry it over into 2018. I don’t want to just be the champion of testing. I want to be the champion of the F2 racing next season.”
