Twenty-one year-old Indy Lights champion JR Hildebrand was invited by Force India to join the team for a three-day test at Jerez this week. The American completed 49 laps with a best time of 1.20.537, the fifth quickest time of the morning. As track conditions improved overall times dropped and his lap was eventually the 10th quickest of the day.
Speaking about his Formula 1 debut JR Hildebrand said: "I was really impressed with the ability of the car. It is different in every way to what I'm used to, both in terms of the outright speed, but also in terms of the characteristics of the car and how it behaves, brakes and drives through corners.
"Having raced on ovals I'm used to a high top speed, so that wasn't too much of a shock, but the amount of load it runs and how much speed you can carry through the corner took some time to get used to. The track was clearly improving throughout the morning, so based on the program we were running, in terms of relative pace we were doing pretty well. I felt I was getting there and was starting to get the most out of the car, particularly towards the end of the morning. I think we still had some free time in the car.
"I lost my best lap by using a bit too much of the road and on my last run I just flat spotted the tyres straight out of the pits, which made a drastic difference in how good the car was and I really couldn't get the ultimate laptime from it. It was a little bit frustrating from the standpoint of losing the last two runs, but we were fifth quickest when my day was effectively done so I was pretty happy with my first outing."
On Wednesday morning JR Hildebrand will be back behind the wheel of the VJM02, while Paul di Resta will take over the wheel from the American driver in the afternoon.
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