The F1 drivers who risk disaster to achieve the impossible

The messages aren't panicked, but they are almost constant. A crackle in the ear, then: "Brake pressures are good." Silence, and another crackle: "Some margin on braking points, in particular Turns 2 and 13."

More silence, a crackle and another instruction. And so the pattern repeats. "Leclerc is eight seconds behind you. Bottas three seconds behind him." Silence. "Suggest using a gear higher in Turns 7, 8 and 9 and try rolling the speed."

Silence. Then, a spin.

"Are you OK? Is the car OK?"

"I'm OK."

"There's Bottas three seconds behind you. Then a group of cars."

"What am I doing? Boxing or going again?"

"Yes, recharge button and box this lap."

"Copy, box this lap."

Right of the white line, first gear for pitbox and engine off. A chance to breathe. A rare moment of respite.

Welcome inside the madness of a Formula 1 free practice session. The driver in question is Lando Norris, and his day does not slow down. From his third FP1 appearance of the season for McLaren, the recently-confirmed 2019 F1 driver will leg it across the Sochi Autodrom to the Formula 2 paddock, hop in his Carlin-run machine and head out again.

There, the targets change. Driving around, keeping out of trouble and doing what the team asks - that's replaced by a bid to set the fastest time possible to try to keep fading title chances alive. Preparing for a title fight is difficult, but the unrelenting 90 minutes Norris had just completed was, in many ways, a lot harder.

"[Renault said I] did a really good job. I am not believing them!" Artem Markelov

What you have above is a window into the world of an FP1 stand-in. It is largely an impossible task. Taking part in a grand prix weekend is a crucial audition for a young driver, but there's not really enough time to shine and plenty of time to look stupid.

In Russia, four drivers were in unfamiliar territory in FP1. Norris drove for McLaren as he continues his preparation for his 2019 graduation, while Antonio Giovinazzi was doing the same for Sauber. Williams '19 hopeful Artem Markelov made his FP1 debut with Renault, and Nicholas Latifi was behind the wheel of a Racing Point Force India.

All four faced different situations and different pressures. This was the first time Norris and Giovinazzi were in their respective cars since being announced as 2019 drivers, but the Briton was about to hop into his F2 machine while Giovinazzi was back behind the wheel of a car he has logged plenty of miles in this year.

Markelov had never experienced an FP1 session before and has minimal experience in a 2018 F1 car, but is trying to show he's worthy of an F1 drive after nearly five years in F2. Latifi, in a bit of career limbo at the minute, was enjoying his sixth day of Force India action.

What binds the quartet is they were all facing a task Sauber team boss Frederic Vasseur describes generously as "never easy".

Vasseur, who has experienced this with the likes of Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc, goes on to say: "It's always a mixed feeling that you have to show something - because you always have the feeling that you are judged on the FP1 - and on the other hand you know perfectly that it could be a disaster if you crash the car, a disaster for you and the team. Imagine that the car is not prepared for FP2..."

Put simply there is everything to lose in FP1 and very little to gain. Don't forget that Giovinazzi followed up his costly crashes in last year's Chinese Grand Prix, when he was standing in at Sauber, with a crash in FP1 in Hungary for Haas. It's part of the reason he has the reputation of a crasher, and some are still not convinced by him as a result.

Turning up for FP1 is effectively a task fraught with career peril. Renault's chassis technical director Nick Chester says that if a regular driver sets a representative lap time and the stand-in can get within "half a second or three quarters of a second and get the miles completed, then they've done a sensible job".

"It's difficult to look good," Chester says. "They haven't got a huge amount of test miles under their belts to beat one of the established guys in the other car."

You might consider that attitude to be a team setting low expectations or having a low opinion of a driver, particularly if it's one with money. But it is actually a marker of how hard the job is.

For example, Markelov did not get within that bracket - he lapped 0.9s off Nico Hulkenberg's best time. Latifi, an F2 race winner, was 1.6s slower than Esteban Ocon.

Markelov says Renault told him he did "a really good job". He laughs, adding: "But I am not believing them!

"I need to be feeling the feedback from the team a bit more. I was nervous to crash the car in the free practice and I was nervous about not [reaching] the target they put to me.

"Like they said I did a really good job, so I am happy. It is interesting, because you hear quite a lot of stuff like that from the engineer. There is like '15 seconds behind Bottas', '10 seconds', 'five seconds, be careful' and you're going to the right - you have to make these switches."

"You go from dealing with a handful of people to all of a sudden dealing with hundreds of people" Gil de Ferran

Driving an F1 car quickly is tough, as Markelov and Latifi proved. But it is doable if the talent, application and experience is there. Norris and Giovinazzi have a bit more of this mix, and look how they fared. Norris was faster than the man he will replace next year, Stoffel Vandoorne, by just over a tenth. Giovinazzi beat Leclerc by a massive three tenths at Sauber as the 2019 Ferrari signing endured a messy session.

But F1 teams are not just looking for pace. Sauber's final words to Giovinazzi were only: "P10, not bad."

Throughout the session he was being hammered for his brake temperatures being too low and his tyre temperatures too high; Norris was told to drive slower in the final sector on a cool-down lap; Markelov was being reminded to bring his temperatures under control and Latifi was being asked to run in higher gears and hit a higher apex speed.

A modern F1 driver needs an intense attention span and the teams' pursuit of perfection does not cease just because there is a less experienced driver in the car. It just means the teams need to make sure the driver is being given the information they need or the nudge to do something better.

Hungry young drivers will be gagging for a low-fuel run on hypersofts to take the car to its limit and show how fast they are, but the team does not want or need that. For these drivers eager for the chance to impress, there is an entirely new layer of complexity to handle before they can even come close to getting it.

"It's not only coming into FP1, coming into F1 in general is hard," explains McLaren sporting director Gil de Ferran. "You go from dealing with a handful of people to all of a sudden dealing with hundreds of people.

"The amount of information you have to take in regarding the car - the engine, the tyres, aerodynamics, suspension - everything is really an order of magnitude higher than what you've been used to and you have to learn how to deal with all these different groups inside the team and those around it that work with the team.

"It's not only difficult to come in and do FP1 at a circuit that you're unfamiliar with. That step into F1 is more than just learning to drive the car. It's learning to deal with all the peripherals that have a much higher complexity level."

At Sochi, Norris and Giovinazzi had the luxury of knowing they were no longer pitching for a drive next season, but that does not mean the job suddenly became easy. Instead the expectations are revised, the objectives shift and the pressure changes, it doesn't relent.

The fact that they outpaced their team's regular driver marked a rare victory for an FP1 stand-in. That it barely registers on anyone's radar shows just how thankless a task trying to impress in those brief moments really is.