Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
The second round of the new all-female F1 Academy series takes place on Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit this weekend in support of the NASCAR Euro Series and EuroNASCAR 2.
The two stock car championships use very different tyres to the Formula 4 cars of F1 Academy, and both the single-seater championship and EuroNASCAR have already been on track this week at Valencia for several hours of testing.
There are three more days of track action, and Formula Scout asked several of F1 Academy’s drivers how they anticipated the NASCAR rubber being laid to impact their time on track and what their experience of sharing the track has been like so far.
“We drove just after the NASCAR [today],” said ART Grand Prix’s Sauber junior Lena Buhler. “I didn’t feel a big difference of grip. Maybe it takes a few laps to become better, but I think it was quite okay for me.”
Prema’s Chloe Chong concurred, adding: “I agree with Lena. I don’t think it was too bad. But obviously coming on to the track with some of the marbles that the NASCARs make can be a bit disruptive in the first few laps.But after five laps, it’s not bad at all. And I think it’s not going to be a massive challenge. Maybe at the start, but overall it’s not that big of a difference.”
Rodin Carlin’s Alpine junior Abbi Pulling however was of a slightly different mindset.
“I tend to disagree with the other two,” she said. “I think that, like Chloe said, the marbles is one of the biggest things, but it’s quite similar to what we found last weekend [at the Red Bull Ring] with the GT rubber that they put down.
“There was a big, I don’t know about other people but for me there was this big difference in the balance of the car when we went into the races. So I’m kind of expecting the same in going into tomorrow.
“The cars are only on track for an hour-and-a-half or two hours or whatever it was, at lunch, so I think there will be a bigger difference, and I certainly did feel a bigger difference going into the final run that we did [today]. Some of it could have been down to track temperature and things like that as well as it was the hottest time of day.
“I think it will be interesting to judge where the car will be when it comes to the races and the rubber has been put down.”