Dean Smith delighted to drive the McLaren car
The first ever test drive on a Formula One car made Dean Smith immensely glad. Smith had a test drive with the British team McLaren earlier today, which he enjoyed thoroughly.
The title winner of the 2009 Formula Renault UK Championship, like any other driver of auto racing world, sees Formula One as his ultimate resort. This week finally provided him the first chance of his life to sit behind the wheels of a Formula One car.
He drove the MP4-23 McLaren Mercedes, the 2008 challenger, at the Silverstone's South Circuit.
Smith has successfully won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award last year, and this is why he was granted the opportunity of driving the McLaren chassis.
The British driver covered three six-lap runs with the brilliant car, and was pleased by the fact that the team was impressed to see his driving skills and passion.
While talking to the media soon after the test drive, the young racer said, "When I went out on track for the first time it was pretty wet but that wasn't a problem, everything felt very comfortable and quite natural actually. We hit 185mph at the end of
the main straight but it didn't feel massively different to cars I've raced and tested before, like the World Series by Renault car, because it's so smooth and well balanced. The McLaren Mercedes is absolutely awesome."
Although the 22-year-old has been doing pretty well since many years yet he is aware of the fact that he has to cover a long way before he can even imagine of entering the Formula One world. Moreover, he is also suffering with the issue of sponsorship money
at the present, for which he yet has to strive very hard.
While answering the questions of the reporters he said, "It's never been a secret in my career - we've always struggled to get the budget together to make the next step on the ladder each time and that's the position we're in again now."
While talking about his future plans the driver revealed that so far he is not sure for his 2011 season. He gave a hint of going to GP3 once again to bag the title or moving to GP2 although that seems pretty tough at the moment for the driver, due to monetary
issues.
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