Nick Yelloly says the 2022 car from the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team feels ‘very, very good’, and he cannot wait to see it hit the track in pre-season testing next February.
Yelloly is the Test and Development driver at Aston Martin and has been an integral part of the development of the successor to the AMR21, with the first simulator sessions for next years car taking place back in March.
Since then, the British driver says the team has made big gains when it comes to performance, and he is optimistic they can have a much better season next year compared to what they achieved in 2021.
“We covered off set-up options, some aspects of next year’s car and some specific direction in set-up so I could get a feeling of how they compared to running in the simulator,” Yelloly is quoted as saying by PlanetF1. “We have been working on the 2022 car for a long time, with our first running in the sim back in March.
“Obviously when we get the new car on the track, that will be the main point. But in general, the car feels very, very good and we test each new idea out on the simulator before even thinking about any build process.
“We have made big gains since March and now we look forward to the February running in Barcelona.”
Yelloly took part in the recent young drivers’ test at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi with Aston Martin as he looked to ensure maximum correlation between simulator and car. He completed one hundred and eighteen laps during the test and enjoyed his time behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again.
“It’s very close!” Yelloly said of the correlation. “I was surprised in the way I found the car in comparison to the simulator, but there are little nuances – for example, the way the tyre slides, the feeling of braking and the reaction of the car over certain kerbs.
“They are small areas we can look at, but in general the simulator is in a very good window and it really helped me dial in my driving to the car early on.
“So it’s given a few things to work on to take us to an even higher level and soon I’ll be back in the simulator for a correlation day.”