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Albon had no nasty surprises from Toro Rosso ahead of rookie season

Albon had no "nasty surprises" from Toro Rosso ahead of rookie season

06-03-2019 18:00 Last update: 18:06
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Bobby Vincent

Rookie driver Alexander Albon has insisted he had no "nasty surprises" from his team Toro Rosso's 2019 car ahead of his first season in Formula 1.

After finishing third in Formula 2 last season, the British-born Thai driver was promoted and summoned by Toro Rosso for the 2019 season and he is set to make his F1 debut in Australia very soon.

Prior to the pre-season tests in Barcelona, Albon had not driven an F1 car, but he managed to complete numerous laps in his new STR14 car.

"We're just happy with the car, there's no nasty surprises," Albon said to Motorsport.com. "In high-speed, low-speed and medium-speed, the car's more or less consistent.

"There's no nasty surprises so the confidence is really good. There's not an area specifically we really need to target, but we need to fine tune the car."

Albon started the testing with a spin onto the gravel, but once he got more used to the SRT14, he managed to complete the most laps out of any driver.

"It's just been steady," Albon said, after completing 489 laps - the sixth-most of any driver. "We hit the ground running pretty fast to be honest, I think we already had a good baseline coming into the first day of testing.

"Since that, we've just been trying things out and seeing what works for us."