SUSIE Wolff said she had shown the speed needed to be taken seriously as a potential Formula 1 driver after her first proper test in a grand prix car.
The 30-year-old Scot spent a day’s testing with her Grove-based Williams team and just missed her personal target of breaking the 1min 35secs barrier.
“It was a fantastic day. Overall I was happy,” Wolff said.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was possible. It’s about going out there and showing what I could do.”
Wolff’s fastest lap of 1min 35.093secs on Friday was 0.462 secs slower than that of her her teammate, Spaniard Daniel Juncadella, the European Formula 3 champion.
Williams race driver Pastor Maldonado clocked 1:34.116.
She said: “I’d seen what he (Juncadella) had done and the team were quite impressed by that and I was 0.4secs off that so it wasn’t so bad.”
Asked about the prospects of her racing in F1 one day, Wolff said: “It was important for me to show I have the performance, it was important to show, given the limited laps I had, I can be on the pace.
“I was only 0.4 secs off the F3 European champion, the guy who’s rated as an up-and-coming young star. For me that was important.
“If that has more meaning for other people because I am female, then I will use that to my advantage.
“But I’m not going to play the card ‘I’m a girl so give me the car I’m fast enough’.
“There were a lot of great performances from young drivers over the three days [of the test]. We’re all fighting hard and I’ve got to continue to fight hard.”
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