Mazepin hopes Silverstone test showing proved potential

The 17-year-old European Formula 3 regular signed with the Silverstone-based squad earlier this year, and got his first taste of F1 machinery in the two-day post-British Grand Prix test.

Mazepin ended fifth and fourth respectively in the two days of testing, setting a best time of 1m31.561s on supersoft tyres - beating Nico Hulkenberg's Q3 time of 1m32.172s from the race weekend.

"I didn’t come here to impress the team, I came here to show the potential in myself, to do a good job, a clean job, and to show myself as a professional driver at 17 years old," said the Russian. "That was the main objective.

"You always try and do 101 percent of your abilities. which is what I do day in, day out, and I think it went pretty quick.

"I [managed] to improve the lap time of the weekend [by 0.611s], obviously on a different tyre, but things went good."

More chances

When asked about his plans going ahead, Mazepin stressed that he still has a long way to go in terms of his development, but hoped to be able to stay at Force India for the longer term.

"You have to remember I’m very young," he said. "If you see in the paddock, even names like [Kimi] Raikkonen and [Fernando] Alonso, it's people over them that decide what they do.

"And I’m exactly [in] the same position, I’m just trying to do my best and I hope the team sees a good driver in myself, reliable, a driver they can trust to test their car.

"A driver they can have in the test and that’s my main thing, I truly enjoyed driving this car, it’s a great car, I’m really hoping to get another chance driving this car," he added.

Force India also has Formula V8 3.5 driver Alfonso Celis Jr on its roster as development driver, the Mexican having already contested FP1 sessions for the team in Bahrain, Russia and Austria.

Realistic expectations

For Mazepin, winning the team's trust is important as he eyes regular outings: "It is important that the team does feel that they don’t have any losses of putting you in the car other than the race drivers.

"Obviously there is, I’m realistic and I’m honest, there are things I feel myself, I need more time to improve because Hulkenberg and Checo [Perez] have been in the car for many years.

"But hopefully I can show a potential to be like them or maybe, if the time goes right, maybe even better than them."

The Russian feels that age is not really factor for him as long as he does the job: "It is very important that I do a good job but I don’t really think about the age so much.

"I try and keep myself out of it, all I think about is how I do the job and how others do the job, I don’t find any excuses for myself.

"If someone who is 28 or 38 went out and did the job better it doesn’t mean it’s fine for me to do worse, I always want to be better than everyone and hopefully I can be that one day."