Granada insists she's building on Zandvoort momentum as she tops Day 1 of Navarra testing

Natalia Granada was left satisfied with a job well done on the opening day of in-season testing at the Circuito de Navarra, but the Sephora driver believes her work is far from over yet.

After going fourth-fastest in the morning, she maintained that pace into the afternoon. As the only driver to dip into the 1:46s in the second session, the Spaniard’s 1:46.906 put her almost two tenths clear of Emma Felbermayr.

It’s a full circle moment for Granada, who made her F1 ACADEMY debut at the track in last year's inaugural Rookie Test. Her session-topping performance comes off the back of a strong showing in Zandvoort, where the 18-year-old qualified inside the top three for the first time and claimed her third top-four finish of the season in the Feature Race.

Reflecting on a positive day of testing, Granada was reassured to see that the areas she’d already identified as weaknesses were steadily being addressed.

“We’ve made good steps forward during the day,” she summarised. “Also in the morning, improving on fresh tyres and then when we put new ones on this afternoon, managing to make more improvements.

“We tried a few things with the car and I could adapt to it. Also, the wind has started to pick up a bit more. I think we have found something quite nice.

“Already in Zandvoort we made a step forward. It's good that we can carry this momentum into testing, but it is only testing. So we just keep making steps forward. I'm focused on how I'm driving and my technique and that's it.”

READ MORE: Granada goes fastest on opening day of Navarra in-season testing

As conditions shifted throughout the day, with the dull skies eventually giving way to sunshine and the breeze picking up significantly, Granada had to stay on top of the changes to the balance of her #19 car.

Unlike earlier rounds in Shanghai, Silverstone and Zandvoort, Granada doesn’t have the luxury of testing at Austin or Las Vegas beforehand. Although both circuits differ wildly from Navarra, Granada was confident that she now understands what’s needed to find a good rhythm from the outset.

“It's something that all of us had the opportunity to practice in Zandvoort in Qualifying when the conditions were changing and adapting to everything,” explained Granada. “It's good to have more opportunities to be on track and try to switch on as fast as possible when we arrive at Austin next month.

“It’ll be 40 minutes (for Free Practice) and then Qualifying, so we just need to get those small steps and that little extra confidence to be able to fight for some nice positions in Quali.”

Tomorrow will mark the final laps of testing for this year’s grid before the penultimate round in Austin and the Las Vegas season finale. Having completed 67 laps on Day 1, Granada has identified her race pace as her biggest priority.

“There are things I need to improve definitely, especially on the long runs we did this afternoon,” she admitted. “Keep maximizing the new tyres, which has been something difficult for me during this season.

“Just keep making small steps forward, improving, doing a lot of laps, and working with the team to see what we can do and how we can prepare best for next month.”