How Aston Martin left teen speechless after first F1 drive

Aston Martin has given teenager Deagen Fairclough his first experience of F1 machinery.

The Englishman climbed behind the wheel of an AMR23 at Silverstone, as driven by Fernando Alonso during the F1 2023 campaign.

Deagen Fairclough handed Aston Martin F1 test at Silverstone

The outing was his reward for winning the BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award in 2024.

The award came with £200,000 and a test with the Aston Martin Formula 1 team.

The GB3 driver took to the British GP venue for the outing last Thursday.

“I’m extremely, extremely lucky to have that opportunity to test drive a Formula 1 car. It’s a dream come true,” Fairclough told invited media, including PlanetF1.com.

“For it to be Fernando Alonso’s car as well, and he stood on the podium with it, that was a real dream come true, pinch me moment.”

Fairclough underwent a seat fitting the day prior, having spent the build up to the outing training his neck to cope with the g-forces.

The F1 machine was a sizeable step up from the Tatuus MSV GB3-025 he’s been campaigning this year – a car broadly akin to Formula Regional.

“It was just phenomenal,” he said of the experience behind the wheel.

“Going out onto the track for the first time, and I remember just hitting the brakes, and it just stopped. And I was like, alright, we’re gonna have to really trust it today.

“I can’t put it into words, and I can’t describe the actual sensation and the feeling of the car. It just makes me want to strive more and make it to the top step of Formula 1. It’s really gave me that motivation to get there.

“Just getting the power down, it was like, there. It was ridiculous,’ he continued.

“Physically, I was really good across the day, but I think the trust and capabilities of it at high speed is ridiculous. Like you, you can’t get your head around it.

“To do Copse flat out, to have the confidence you’re going from like, say, a GB3, where you’re braking or you’re doing a half lift, to just saying, ‘screw it, let’s go flat out’, and you’re going twice the speed is really insane.”

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While Fairclough competed in karting as a junior, Fairclough’s racing ambitions received a significant boost when he won a Formula 4 eSports competition, backed by former Williams sponsor, Rokit.

That saw him race in the 2023 F4 British Championship, finishing third with three race wins. He then dominated the competition last year before stepping into GB3 for 2025.

It was an experience Fairclough hopes will serve him well for his return to GB3, and what comes beyond – though his 2026 programme is yet to be decided.

“The driving technique is a big thing,” he said of the differences. “It’s really different to how you drive a GB3, because the amount of downforce there actually is, you’re able to drop the brake and roll the speed into the corners.

“And I would say, just working with the amount of people that are around you [was different]. Whereas in the lower categories, you’ve only got your engineer, there’s so many people involved behind the scenes that are looking for certain requirements and certain gears you need to be in corners, and there’s a lot you need to process.

“It was a little bit overwhelming prior to the test, the day before, where I was trying to sink in as much information as possible, because there’s a lot of things… like, if you’re lifting in high gear, it can potentially blow the engine up, so there’s a lot of things you have to be really delicate and precise about to make sure the car is running very optimally.

“But there’s so much information at that level, even just the test day, to take on board. It was a big eye-opener.

“It’s so hard to actually put into words how that car is until you drive it.

“I’m still quite speechless.” He added. “I’m still trying to process it now, and it’s been a few days since.”

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