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Spanish Alex Ballouwho made his official Formula 1 debut in early free practice for the US Grand Prix, finished training with an ear-to-ear smile and later posted on his social media about his debut: “That was crazy.”
The 2021 IndyCar champion rode 21 laps at the Circuit of the Americas, in Austin (Texas), where he set the 17th session record (1:39:911) and was the second best unofficial driver, surpassed only by Russian-Israeli Robert Schwartzman, of Ferrari ( 1: 38.951).
Concluding the practice, his McLaren team posted a video of him getting into the pits, with a big smile on his face as he got out of the car and took off his helmet. “That smile at the end says it all. You will never forget that experience,” McLaren wrote on its official Twitter account.
Palou also used this social network to report, hours before training, that a “great day” was coming and used it again to post another message moments after the session ended with a “that was crazy” message and a picture to McLaren’s controls.
During training, he was seen feeling well, enjoying himself and being relaxed, something relayed over the radio when he spoke to the team about how fast the car was moving: “It’s crazy.”
This was Balu’s first official F1 practice session, although he had previously tested McLaren in two tests in Austria and Barcelona.
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