Tatiana Calderón will take a step closer to her Formula 1 dream this weekend when she makes her debut in the FIA Formula 2 Championship at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain.
Having renewed her ties with the freshly-rebranded Alfa Romeo F1 team, Tatiana has signed to drive for the BWT Arden outfit in F2, reuniting with the team she drove for in the GP3 Series back in 2016.
Ahead of her Bahrain debut, the Colombian ace has completed six days of pre-season testing at Jerez and Barcelona, allowing her to refamiliarise herself with the Arden team and acclimatise to the powerful Dallara-built, turbocharged F2 2018 machine she’ll drive this year.
The 5.412km Bahrain track is a happy hunting ground for Tatiana, who first raced there in late 2015 when she contested the MRF Challenge Formula 2000 series. That weekend, she scored a podium finish, a result she repeated during a guest appearance in the Formula V8 3.5 series (formerly World Series by Renault) in what proved to be the series’ final race weekend in 2017.
Those memories will give the 26-year-old confidence on her F2 race debut in the desert, with high temperatures sure to make sound pitstop strategy and tyre preservation key to success.
Tatiana Calderón: “I’m very excited to go back to Bahrain, it’s a track I like and I have had some success there with Formula V8 3.5 and with the MRF Challenge in previous years. We have discussed with the team where we struggled in winter testing and we hope to be more competitive this weekend, and find out where we are really at. For sure it will be a special weekend making my debut in F2 in front of the F1 teams, it’s something special. Hopefully we can fight for points, that’s the aim.”
BAHRAIN TIMETABLE (Times in CET, subject to change) Friday 29 March Practice – 09:30 Qualifying – 14:50 Saturday 30 March Race 1 – 11:10 Sunday 31 March Race 2 – 13:15
NB: Clocks move one hour forward in Europe on March 31
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