Ferrari Driver Academy : A 700 kilometre debut

Company press release.

Circuit: Magny Cours – 4.411 km

Driver: Davide Rigon

Car: Ferrari F2012

Weather: air temperature 14/20 °C, track temperature 16/26 °C. Overcast.

Magny-Cours, 12 September - Second day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari at Magny Cours, along with two other teams taking part in the Young Driver Test.

Davide Rigon completed over 700 kilometres today at the wheel of the F2012, making his debut with the Maranello team at an official test. The Italian, who has been on the books at the Scuderia for sporting and promotional purposes for two years, completed a busy programme. In the morning the focus was on aerodynamic measurements and in the afternoon, it switched to set-up testing, aimed at checking the correlation between these two areas and the work carried out in the simulator.

'I've already been to Magny-Cours twice in other categories, but driving a Formula 1 car here was incredible!' - said Davide at the end of the test - 'At the start I was very excited, but after ten laps I was able to concentrate completely on the day's busy programme. Doing so many laps gave me the opportunity to improve my feeling at the wheel and to understand the difference between the work on the simulator and being on track in a real car. It was also useful that, technically, this track is very complete.'

Rigon did 165 laps with a best time of 1.17.925. Tomorrow, Jules Bianchi returns to the cockpit for the final day of testing at the French track.