Ticktum annoyed at missing ‘seven tenths’ with issue on F1 debut

Dan Ticktum has conceded his frustration at missing “seven or so tenths” on his fast laps due to an issue during his last run on his debut Formula 1 test.

The Red Bull driver ended his maiden F1 outing ninth fastest on the second day of the Bahrain in-season test with a fastest lap of 1m 30.856s but felt he could have gone considerably quicker on the timesheet but was retrained by a problem which lost him a chunk of lap time.

Ticktum ended the day 1.8 seconds slower than timesheet-topper George Russell in the Mercedes but took comfort in notching up a marathon 135 laps completing aerodynamic work and trying setup changes for Red Bull.

“I think we got some really good data for the team which is obviously the most important part of these days,” Ticktum said. “I had a little issue on my last tyre run which stopped me from going about seven or so tenths faster.

“I’m a little bit annoyed about that but it’s not what this day is about, it’s about gathering data. In that respect it’s good.

“Fitness is absolutely fine. I’ve prepared quite a lot since January. The last three or four months have been pretty flat out and that’s helped. The neck wasn’t too bad either.”

Ticktum, who is contesting in Super Formula this year for Team Mugen Honda, accepts it was a significant learning curve adapting to F1 from his experience of the Japanese series plus his time in junior championships as he assessed the key differences he faced in Bahrain.

“A lot learned as it was my first time in a modern F1 car,” he said. “A big step up from me, even from Super Formula. The biggest thing for me was learning about all the different procedures because you don’t have that in the junior formulas.

“All the different things on the steering wheels, even on push laps you have to change so many things. That was all a bit to take in to start with but I think I got used to it pretty quickly.

“It’s a bit heavier than Super Formula so you notice that in the slow-speed corners. Everything else is much better obviously.”