Alexander Albon expressed confidence with Toro Rosso’s progress through winter testing, commenting that there have been "no nasty surprises".
Albon has linked up with Toro Rosso for the 2019 Formula 1 season, stepping up to the championship in the wake of finishing third in last year’s Formula 2 championship.
Albon has now completed his pre-season campaign – with Daniil Kvyat in the car for the final day of action today (Friday) – and was buoyed by the feel of the STR14 through his four days of running.
“Overall we’re just happy with the car, there are no nasty surprises,” said Albon.
“The car is well balanced in low, medium and high-speed corners, it’s consistent, so it’s really good for confidence. And Barcelona is the ideal track for that, because it has all sorts of corners.
“There’s no particular area we need to target to improve it, we’re just trying to fine-tune the car.
“We actually hit the ground pretty fast, so we already had a pretty good baseline, coming into the first day of testing.
“We could see everything was working for us and it was more a case of seeing what the car was like with the quicker track conditions and quicker tyres.
“I wouldn’t say we made huge steps from day to day, because already in the first day it was quite good, as the team had done a very good job with the baseline they gave us here.”
The next time Albon steps into the STR14 will be during practice for the Australian Grand Prix.
“I still don’t really believe it, it won’t hit me until I’m there,” he said.
“It’s exciting, Melbourne is not the easiest circuit, so I’m sure FP1 will be a bit of an eye opener, but I’m excited.”
