Racing in Florida with Ferrari's F1 academy

When I was checked in at Heathrow Airport by a woman whose daughter was godfathered by the late Ligier and Ferrari Formula 1 star Didier Pironi, I knew this was going to be a trip to remember.

After holding up the check-in desk for about 15 minutes, talking about 'Rush'-era F1 drivers with this American Airlines attendant, I headed off to find my flight to Florida.

I'd been invited to contest the opening round of the Florida Winter Series, a new, four-round single-seater racing initiative created by the Ferrari Driver Academy, the young-driver development arm of Ferrari's F1 team.

The FDA is run by Luca Baldisserri, the Italian chief engineer who helped mastermind Michael Schumacher's five consecutive world championships for Ferrari between 2000 and '04, and the Florida Winter Series is his baby.

Baldisserri wants to give aspiring professional single-seater drivers the chance to develop their skills in the warm climes of North America during the cold and miserable European winter, simultaneously pitting their wits against the FDA's best drivers and gaining exposure to working methods developed by one of F1's greatest teams.

The FWS takes inspiration from New Zealand's successful Toyota Racing Series, in which reigning European Formula 3 champion and FDA racer Raffaele Marciello competed ahead of his rookie Euro F3 season in 2012.

The FWS is based around a fleet of 'identical' 1.4-litre, turbocharged Tatuus-Fiats. The cars ran in Formula Abarth and will form the basis for the new FIA Italian Formula 4 Championship, except the ones we're using in Florida are turned up to around 190bhp and run on Hankook Formula 3 tyres.

Baldisserri created the FWS in rapid time

Considering the short time Baldisserri and his team had to get this thing off the ground (plans were only finalised last October), everything is looking pretty slick as I drive into Sebring International Raceway to meet the team and have a seat fitting in my 'Silver Bullet'.

Oh! Did I forget to mention the FWS held its inaugural race on one of America's most iconic circuits? Sorry. I told you this trip was going to be special!

I've barely had time to survey my new surroundings when I bump into Rene Rosin, manager of Prema Powerteam. His father Angelo's squad ran Marciello to his F3 title last season and also helped Brit Alex Lynn win the Macau Grand Prix.

Their engineers and mechanics are responsible for running the cars, while Rene himself acts as a race director for each event. The chance to work closely with Ferrari's de facto junior team, and one of the best single-seater outfits in the world, is another big selling point for the series.

Rosin tells me things got off to an ignominious start in the pre-season collective test at Homestead, where karting world champion Max Verstappen (son of ex-Benetton and Arrows F1 driver Jos) crashed into Formula Renault ALPS champion Antonio Fuoco in the pitlane a matter of minutes into the first session!

But the FWS is all about learning, and you only do that by making mistakes. I was sure I'd make plenty over the course of the event (and I did).

The serious business begins with a collective track walk. Ex-F1 engineer Francesco Pon and Prema driver coach Nuno Pinto (a former Iberian Formula BMW champion who has worked closely with, among others, Force India and Caterham third drivers Daniel Juncadella and Robin Frijns) take the lead, pointing out bumps, changes of surface, vicious kerbs and other things to be aware of when first lapping the track.

When you're dealing with a mammoth 3.7 miles of runway asphalt, there are lots of things to look out for. Turns 1 and 17 are singled out for particular attention, owing to their high-speed nature, nasty and numerous bumps, and the lack of sightlines from which the driver can take a reference.

The FWS field prepares for action at Sebring

At times, the group is like a bunch of unruly schoolchildren (what did you expect from a collection of young racing drivers, present company excepted of course?...) but we're all encouraged to take detailed notes on the track and review them overnight, before taking to the track for practice.

Saturday's schedule features four free practice sessions, each an hour long. This is the most running we will do in a single day across the whole event. We are all briefed by Baldisserri first thing in the morning, and asked by our engineers to set specific targets for the sessions and review them in between.

Everyone agrees this will be a particularly challenging circuit for stiff, carbonfibre, monoshock-front single-seaters, so ride heights are raised and we are all briefed to build up speed gradually, and not risk ending our day early by shunting into one of Sebring's fearsome concrete walls.

I tell Pon my initial plan is to get used to the car, which I've never driven before, and learn the circuit. He tells me to "drive naturally" so we can establish what I'm doing and what I need to do better. "Like a baby learning to walk; we need to discover together," he says.

The first session is interrupted by a lot of red flags, as the bolder drivers explore the outer limits of Sebring's surroundings, so it's difficult to get a rhythm going. I concentrate on building up gradually because it's a lot to take in: the circuit is 'old-school', extremely bumpy, and apart from the back straight there's nowhere to rest, so you have to be alert at all times.

My 2m10.8s best puts me 11th of the 12 drivers in the field, which includes Marciello, Fuoco, Verstappen, F3 racers Nicholas Latifi (who sets the pace on 2m05.1s), Ed Jones, Dennis van de Laar and Tatiana Calderon, Formula Renault 2.0 racer Alex Bosak, and karting graduates Lance Stroll (another FDA member), Vasily Romanov and Takashi Kasai.

A review of my technique suggests I'm braking in the correct way (high initial pressure and gradually 'bleeding off' the pedal) and picking up the throttle well, but holding onto the brakes for too long and killing too much speed in the corners.

Anderson sets out again to try to trim his times

In the second session I improve to 2m08.2s on old tyres, which moves me up to ninth, 3.4s adrift of Marciello, who is the first driver to break into the 2m04s. A second of that deficit is coming in the first three corners alone. New Hankooks are fitted for the second part of the session, but I embarrassingly spin off at Turn 3 on the out-lap and stall the engine trying to rejoin the track. That lack of concentration costs me my first new-tyre run.

A collective debrief during lunch allows all to learn from the best performer. Marciello's onboard video is played to the group and the FDA tutors point out the lines he is taking and how he positions his car for the corners. We are all encouraged to review our technique with the engineers and think about how we can improve in the afternoon.

In the third session I manage to keep the car on the track long enough to make use of some new tyres this time, and improve to 2m07.0s. It puts me within 2.8s of Latifi, who has leapt back to the top of the times.

That stands as my best of the day once my new-tyre run in the final session is spoiled by another spate of red flags. Max Verstappen goes a second clear of the rest, on a 2m03.385s, to end the day fastest of all.

My principle issue is a familiar one to me: relying too much on the front tyres to stop and turn the car, and not using the lateral grip available from the rear to carry more speed into the corners, rotate the car quicker in the later phase of braking, and thus set myself up for better exits.

Comparing my driving to Verstappen's reveals that my general approach is fine, but I'm braking too early and elongating the phases of each corner. This adds up over such a long circuit.

Overnight, Pon encourages me to visualise driving the track and complete some timed laps in my mind. He also suggests a few exercises to "wake up" before Sunday's two 30-minute qualifying sessions, which are run consecutively with a 30-minute break in between.

My performance is utterly Jekyll-and-Hyde.

"And this was where you spun next..."

Mr Hyde makes his appearance in Q1: a 360-degree spin at Turn 16, lots of mistakes, pushing too hard too soon, and I'm sitting on a best lap of 2m08.8s when the session is red-flagged with roughly three minutes remaining.

I head back out for one more flying lap before the chequered flag and manage to improve to 2m07.8s, which puts me ninth on the grid but still 0.8s away from my personal best and a whopping 4.6s adrift of Fuoco's pole time.

The pressure of going straight into qualifying has told and I'm all at sea. In steps Pinto with a pep talk. "Just try coming off the brakes earlier for every corner," he advises. "That's what I would say from watching trackside. Brake in the same places, but brake less. Focus on that."

He also gives me some advice on preparing the new tyres properly for a qualifying run: "First lap, don't push at all and do some big weaves on the straights; second lap, try to scrub the fronts using understeer at the apexes; lap three, normal driving but don't push too hard; fourth lap, the tyres should be ready to push."

This is a big help and Dr Jekyll replaces Mr Hyde for Q2. The session still features plenty of traffic and other distractions, but I focus on what I've been told and the strategy enables me to drive more effectively and with a cooler head.

I improve to a 2m06.4s lap, my best of the event so far. This is only good enough for 10th on the grid (and well adrift of Verstappen's 2m02.4s effort, which is nearly half a second clear of the rest and stands as the best lap of the entire meeting), but I am delighted to have achieved my pre-session goal of making it into the 2m06s.

The clouds descend over Florida during the lunch break and the track is soaking for the start of race one. Of the three 30-minute races, this is easily my best. The wet weather and treaded tyres take grip away from the car and bring it much closer to my Formula Ford and Formula Vee frames of reference.

We start behind a pace car for safety reasons, and after some early battling with Bosak I break away and spend my race trying to hunt down Stroll for seventh (Calderon's car breaks down early on so she doesn't finish).

My best lap is half a second quicker than his (and within a second of Marciello's and Latifi's), but I lose too much time fighting with Bosak early on to make up the ground. After the race I learn I was giving away 0.7s just on the brakes into Turns 7 and 10...

We sit down with our engineers and work through a checklist, which is designed to encourage the driver to think about what they have just experienced and what can be improved.

The engineer asks a set of pre-defined questions regarding different aspects of the car and its behaviour, and the drivers simply have to answer as honestly as possible, even if they have nothing to say to a particular question.

This is a hugely beneficial exercise, because it teases out information that otherwise would remain locked in the driver's memory. Based on the answers, you can come up with ways to improve the car and also targets for the driver to focus on in the next session.

The reversed-grid second race takes place in beautiful sunshine on Monday morning. In the pre-race collective briefing we are lectured on the importance of rotating the car to drive corners quicker - braking less on the same line and using the rear of the car to steer and set yourself up for straighter and faster exits.

Pon talks about the centre of rotation of the car and where the driver feels that movement. He asks drivers to draw on a diagram where they like to feel rotation. We discuss how that point can move, both through use of technique and also through set-up.

"We're only talking about small angles - maybe five degrees," he explains, "but transversal grip helps to slow the car down and allows the driver to use yaw to corner instead of steering."

We are encouraged to think about where we perceive this rotation during the second race, but mine doesn't really last long enough.

After a solid start, which lifts me to third behind Calderon and Bosak (I pass Romanov off the line, while Kasai elects to start from the back), I am battling to hold off Jones, Marciello and Verstappen when I miss the apex at Turn 1 on lap five and have a massive oversteer moment.

This gives Marciello and Verstappen a run on me heading up to Turn 3. Marciello dives for the inside and I brake a fraction earlier in an effort to cut back underneath, but I fail to make the corner as Verstappen clatters into the back of my car under braking, damaging his front wing and my rear wing and putting us both out of the race after we've limped back to the pits.

Verstappen Jr apologises for his mistake, but for me the event evokes memories of his dad's lapped Arrows crashing into the back of Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams at the 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix. Probably not for Max, though: he was only three at the time!

After the race, the FDA reviews all the incidents (Jones and van de Laar have also come together) and we discuss the mistakes made and how they can be eliminated. This is very important for young drivers who don't have much car-racing experience, as it allows them to see which behaviours are acceptable and which are not, and hopefully fosters a greater sense of respect among the group when they're racing.

Race three features another embarrassing spin on cold tyres for me, this time on my way to the grid! Having overcome that little hiccup and made my way successfully around for the start, I elect to concentrate on improving my driving, rather than racing too hard for position.

This pays off and I make another big step, working down to a 2m05.4s best on used tyres (each driver is given two extra new tyres - one front, one rear - to fit for one of the three races; mine were fitted for race two), which puts me only 0.5s behind Stroll and within 1.8s of the fastest, set by race winner Fuoco.

The car makes more sense in this race. I'm able to commit to more speed entering the corners and I feel I'm now braking in the right places and in the right way. The only thing that's lacking is a bit of confidence picking up the throttle in the quicker corners (particularly T1, T16 and T17) and accessing that final bit of extra grip available with the downforce.

I feel I'm finally getting to grips with how to drive an aero car properly, but my enthusiasm leads to a couple of big moments in the middle of the race and it takes me several laps to build up confidence again.

Jos Verstappen watches son Max in action

I'm also fading physically, having not yet completed a full-dry race distance in these cars. Verstappen (delayed by a jumped-start penalty) is closing rapidly and I offer little resistance to his challenge on the penultimate lap, choosing instead to slot in behind and follow him.

My final effort is a 2m05.8s, which, given I messed up the last corner of the previous lap letting him through, doesn't stack up too badly. I only finished ninth, but alight the car delighted to have achieved my goal of making the 2m05s.

And that's what the Florida Winter Series is all about really: setting (realistic) targets and working out how to achieve them with some of the best young drivers and single-seater engineers in the business on hand to help you.

I left Sebring a better driver than when I arrived, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can say that. That means Baldisserri's brainwave is doing exactly what he intended.

He and his team should be proud of what they've started. As 'Jos the Boss' said in the aftermath: "I must say I'm very impressed with what they've done here. It's half a season against some of the top drivers in Europe. I think a better preparation you cannot get."