Robin Frijns’ manager says his driver’s two outings for Caterham in the first tests of this season are “unique” in recent Formula One history.
Timo Gans of management company Ganscomm wrote on Twitter that Frijns “had two outings already, as a test driver without money”.
“This is unique in F1, probably didn’t happen in the last three years.”
“Showing the great trust that Caterham has in him, which is much appreciated,” Gans continued. “Couldn’t be happier with where we are.”
Frijns, who won the 2012 Formula Renault 3.5 championship, joined Sauber as a test driver last year but lost his seat after the team appointed Sergey Sirotkin. He also lost his GP2 seat despite winning his third start in the category, again due to a lack of funds.
Frijns will not drive for Caterham in the final pre-season test this week but Gans said this was “no reason to be sad at all – quite the contrary”.
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Image © Caterham/LAT
BasCB (@bascb)
26th February 2014, 10:22
It sure is special, a bit of a shame they had to take a pay driver for the 2nd race driver though. Let us hope they get some kind of result this year and do not pull the plug on Caterham in F1.
HK (@me4me)
26th February 2014, 11:16
Too bad Caterham didn’t do a driver shoot-out, like Force India did with Sutil and Bianchi last year. I bet Frijns would’ve destroyed Ericsson on pure pace.
Mike (@mike)
26th February 2014, 13:33
The car isn’t up to that yet
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
26th February 2014, 11:57
This is good to hear. Hopefully this may lead to Robin getting another opportunity to break into a team full time.
SP (@jb001)
26th February 2014, 13:10
Well, at least Caterham didn’t make Frijns pay for sitting in the garage (or to get seat time). I foresee a continuing exodus of talent if money continues to be such a determining factor in European\FIA open wheel series.
Robert
26th February 2014, 15:31
Frijns is a future world champion! I hope talent wil be the no 1 reason to take a place at the team!
mantresx (@mantresx)
26th February 2014, 17:00
I reckon Caterham only gave him seat time in case Ericsson didn’t get the mileage for his superlicense, now that he has it I don’t expect to see Frijns in the car so much.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
27th February 2014, 0:35
He’s going to run a bunch of Friday test sessions throughout the season, and likely will be involved in other testing throughout the season. Which is what he was after, some real track time to build his experience of F1. Sauber were never going to offer him that this year, and I’lll be surprised if VDG gets any running at that team barring an injury to one of the drivers.
Tomsk (@tomsk)
26th February 2014, 17:44
Hmmm, it’s a looker alright!
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th February 2014, 1:44
Euromillions sign Frinjs and Da Costa now.