This morning shortly after 10 o’clock, Robert Shwartzman drove out of the Fiorano pit garage at the wheel of an SF21, the car raced two seasons ago, thus kicking off Scuderia Ferrari’s track activity for this year. The end of January “wake-up” test has been a regular feature for the team over the past few years, proving useful for drivers, mechanics and engineers to get back into the swing of things on track.
77 laps. Shwartzman, who this year shares the role of development and reserve driver with Antonio Giovinazzi, completed only a few laps in the morning, as the track was far from being at its best in the wet and extremely cold conditions. By lunchtime, he had completed 35 laps on rain tyres. In the afternoon another short spell of rain slowed the programme again, but Robert still managed to do a further 52 laps, also on rain tyres for his final run, making a total of 77 laps for the day, equal to 259 kilometres. For much of the day, three Ferrari Driver Academy students, the girls Maya Weug and newcomer Aurelia Nobels, as well as Arthur Leclerc, were in the garage seeing how the a Formula 1 teams operates. The other students, with the exception of Oliver Bearman, were on their way to Kuwait to take part in the second rounds of the Formula 4 UAE and Formula Regional Middle East championships.
Tomorrow it’s Carlos’ turn. Scuderia Ferrari continues running tomorrow with race driver Carlos Sainz at the wheel of the SF21.