Tatiana Calderón heads to this weekend’s ninth round of the FIA Formula 2 Championship season at Spa-Francorchamps buoyed by a recent test in Alfa Romeo Racing’s F1 car.
The Colombian rising star made her third on-track appearance in her role as Alfa Romeo test driver last Friday at the Circuit Paul Ricard, driving a V8-powered, 2013-spec Sauber C32.
Building on the mileage that she accrued in her two F1 test outings last season, Tatiana once again impressed during her time on track, showing steady improvement throughout the day, and now the 26-year-old is looking to use this valuable experience as a springboard for the final part of her F2 campaign with the BWT Arden team.
This weekend’s races at legendary Belgian Grand Prix venue Spa are the first of two back-to-back rounds, with Monza following the week after, and both are tracks where Tatiana has performed strongly in previous seasons in both Formula 3 and GP3.
Spa in particular holds happy memories for the Bogota native, who famously became the first female driver to lead laps in European F3 back in 2015 at the Ardennes track. Last season in GP3, she scored two top-10 finishes, a performance she’ll be hoping to replicate this weekend in the faster and more demanding F2 car.
Tatiana Calderón: “I’m excited to head back to Spa, my favourite track, and coming from the Formula 1 test in Paul Ricard gives me a little bit more confidence. I understood a few things from the test, and I want to thank the Alfa Romeo Racing team again for a really great job. I think the test could be really beneficial for Spa and Monza – not just because of the track time, but because in an F1 car you have much more information regarding brake temperature and tyre temperatures. I’ve done well at Spa in past seasons so I hope we can turn the season around, starting this weekend. I’m looking forward to lapping there a bit quicker in the F2 car. It’s always a challenge when you have to discover everything in free practice, but I’m ready for that and hopefully we can have a good weekend.”
SPA WEEKEND TIMETABLE
(times CET and subject to change)
Friday 30thAugust
Practice – 13:00
Qualifying – 16:55
Saturday 31stAugust
Race 1 – 16:45
Sunday 1stSeptember
Race 2 – 11:15
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