Aston Martin to give rookie first proper F1 test

Jak Crawford is to drive a contemporary F1 car for the first time for Aston Martin in the post-season young driver test.

American Crawford has driven the 2022 machine in testing earlier this year under the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) programme, but has yet to drive the '24-spec machine, currently piloted by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. 

Crawford, currently fifth in F2, drove the 2022 car earlier this week during a demostration run in Houston, with the team set to confirm at a later date who will join Crawford for the Pirelli aspect of the test after the season finale. 

The idea of a rookie sprint race was scrubbed for 2024, meaning the standard testing programme will take place.

"I’m excited about the opportunity of driving the AMR24 for the first time in Abu Dhabi," said Crawford. 

"I’ve spent lots of hours on the simulator back at the AMR Technology Campus, and I will be continuing this ahead of the test to make sure I am well prepared.

"Yas Marina is a circuit I know well, so hopefully this will help me get up to speed quickly. 

"I would like to say a big thanks to everyone at Aston Martin for the chance to drive this year’s car in the test.”