Jack Crawford says Aston Martin FP1 delivered data

Jack Crawford’s Austrian Grand Prix FP1 appearance for Aston Martin was less about the timesheet than what the team learned, with the reserve driver saying he completed the program almost as planned and delivered useful data despite a red flag disruption at the end of the session.

Crawford took over Lance Stroll’s car as Aston Martin met part of Formula 1’s rookie practice requirement at Spielberg. In his fourth FP1 appearance in total, he finished 20th with a 1:11.202 lap and said the session quickly settled into a productive run.

“Good session. Now I feel that I’m quite adapted to the F1 car,” Jack Crawford, Aston Martin’s reserve driver, said after FP1. “From the first run, I was able to drive comfortably right away, and I got up to speed quickly. I’m very satisfied with what we did today.”

That mattered more to Aston Martin than Crawford’s final position. He said the team completed the plan “almost exactly as planned” and that the outing produced lessons he can feed back into simulator work, giving the team another useful reference point between track running and development support.

The only clear interruption came at the end of the hour. Crawford said he was due to carry out start practice, but the red flag prevented it. “At the end, I was planning to do start practice, but I couldn’t because of the red flag. That’s just how it goes,” he said.

Aston Martin’s own verdict pointed in the same direction. Honda GM Orihara said Crawford provided “PU-related simulation” feedback and described the opening day as meaningful, suggesting the value of the session lay in development data rather than headline speed.

That was underlined by Aston Martin’s broader Friday pace. Fernando Alonso ended the day 22nd in FP1 and 19th in FP2, while Stroll returned for the second session and was 20th, leaving Crawford’s work as one of the more useful gains from a difficult start to the weekend.