Pato O’Ward describes his FP1 outing on the Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix as “a dream come true” after finishing a clear and aggressive session on Friday.
McLaren ran O’Ward as a part of its rookie follow necessities, with the IndyCar star taking on Lando Norris’ automobile for the opening session of the race weekend. With the FP1 look being the primary time O’Ward has pushed at his residence race, he says his closing tally of 21 laps and a greatest time simply over 0.3s off teammate Oscar Piastri was a powerful return after a prolonged pink flag.
“I believed it was an excellent FP1,” O’Ward stated. “We received by means of a really intense working plan, particularly with such a chaotic and loopy follow session.
“I might have liked to have some extra likelihood maybe on the arduous [tire] to organize for the delicate, however with having what we did, I can really feel fairly happy with what I received out for myself and with all the data that I used to be in a position to collect for the crew, as a result of they’re clearly in a reasonably necessary title combat and I’m clearly right here … to assist that they keep the place they’re.
“A dream come true, I noticed the Mexican flags, I noticed floating Pato faces in sure areas; it was actually cool.”
O’Ward admits he was underneath very strict directions from McLaren as a result of information the crew wanted to collect, however targeted on being constant over making an attempt to show his uncooked tempo potential.
“‘Pato, don’t shunt the automobile!’ Pato should you try to go too quick I’m going to scream at you!’ and, ‘We want data,’ [were the messages], and this data is extraordinarily necessary to what the weekend goes to appear like,” O’Ward stated.
“It was very clear that I needed to prioritize all the things that was wanted from me by way of gathering data, being constant, however it’s fairly tough. Whenever you don’t know this automobile, you don’t know this observe a lot, you’re making an attempt to study for your self, however you’re additionally making an attempt to remain as constant as attainable for the crew, for all the info that they’re gathering, however I’m more than happy with it.
“I feel we gathered all the things that we wanted to in a reasonably chaotic session, and I feel they’re fairly proud of the job that I did. I actually am, so I can’t wait to drive this automobile once more. Hopefully I get to drive it someday earlier than the yr ends. That will be cool.”
