FR 3.5 – A look back at the rookies testing in Barcelona

Apart from Norman Nato (see the article to follow), a young purely French-speaking driver was able to discover the driving of the FR 3.5 2012. This is Mathéo Tuscher, freshly vice-champion of Formula 2, after having narrowly bowed to the Briton Luciano Bacheta.

While he will only celebrate his 16th birthday on December 12, this Swiss from Vaud, who also has French nationality (through his mother), had prepared particularly well for this first test at the wheel of one of the single-seaters of the Pons Racing team. Mathéo Tuscher only shot on Wednesday, and his morning was devoted to getting his bearings. In the afternoon, he was able to change to new tires and, on a track much slower than the morning or the day before, ended the day with a fairly significant time of 1:30:712, while all the others had achieved their best performance in the morning or the day before. An encouraging contact, compared to the performances of his compatriot Zoel Amberg, holder this season.

The other satisfaction of Tuscher, like Nato, is to have not particularly suffered on a physical level by discovering this Dallara-Zytek much more demanding than a F2, GP3 or F3. For other beginners, like the American Conor Daly or the Filipino Marlon Stöckinger, and even the Catalan Albert Costa, Eurocup Mégane Trophy champion, for his return in car after a year of interruption, the sore neck or arms at the 13 p.m. break revealed their lack of resistance at the moment.

Over the two days of testing, we will note that the best time of the FR 3.5 neophytes is to be attributed to Carlos Sainz Jr (Carlin), who rode both days and signed the 6th absolute performance with 1?29?185. Then come Jazeman Jaafar (Carlin) 8th, Pietro Fantin (Lotus) 9th, Serguey Sirotkin (Dams then ISR) 11th and Norman Nato (Arden Caterham) 12th. As for the Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne, the Eurocup FR 2.0 champion, he started the second day with Arden Caterham and set a promising 22nd time of 1:30:156.