Triple world champion Lewis Hamilton has warned that Formula One’s new cars, while better looking and thrilling to drive, might not do much for the racing when the season starts in Australia on March 26.
The Briton, clear title favorite after the retirement of Mercedes teammate and champion Nico Rosberg, said overtaking could be even more of a problem than it was before.
“Now the turbulence is easily twice as powerful from the car, coming out of the back of the car,” he told reporters after three days of testing, with Mercedes doing more laps and going faster than any of their rivals. “So that just magnifies the issue we had before. Let’s hope the racing’s fantastic, but don’t hold your breath, I’d say.”
Photo: AFP
The time set by Hamilton’s new teammate Valtteri Bottas on Wednesday would have put the Finn on pole at the Spanish Grand Prix in any year since the Circuit de Catalunya changed its layout in 2007.
Hamilton, who had concentrated mainly on putting on mileage, said the performance was “amazing” in terms of the speed carried through corners.
“It definitely is the fastest that I have ever driven in Formula One,” said the 32-year-old, who made his debut with McLaren in 2007. “We’re flat [out] in corners that we’ve never been before.”
“I hope that it splits the men from the boys,” he said of the physical challenges the cars impose on drivers with the fatter tires and revised aerodynamics subjecting them to increased G-forces through corners.
The greater downforce means drivers no longer have to brake into some corners, allowing them to go through without even lifting.
“In actual fact we are slower on the straights, but it’s how late and deep you can brake into the corners, it’s how quick you can get back to the gas, how you are able to take the corners flat out easily,” Hamilton said. “It’s quite unreal. It’s amazing. I’m coming through some of these corners ... and I’m like a kid on a roller-coaster ride because it’s so much better than it was before, but following is not good.”
He said it was great that Formula One had made changes, but engineers had warned of the consequences.
“Following is not easy. It’s worse to follow another car,” Hamilton said. “I don’t know how that’s going to play out in an actual race when there’s lots of cars.”
That might not be so much of a problem for Hamilton, whose Mercedes looks so quick that he can expect to start from the front.
“That’s the plan,” he said.
Meanwhile, Williams pulled out of the final day of the first pre-season test for safety reasons after Canadian teenager Lance Stroll crashed into a tire wall.
The former champions said that a thorough inspection of the new FW40 car overnight had revealed some damage to the chassis.
“Therefore, on safety grounds, the team will not run the car today [Wednesday],” a statement said. “A second chassis will be prepared at track this afternoon, as originally planned, with the team aiming to be back on track for the second test next week starting on Tuesday.”
Hamilton weighed in on the Stroll mishap.
“It is the toughest year to come into Formula One, being that these are the fastest and most physical cars, and such a short amount of testing,” the Briton told reporters.
“Last year’s car is easy compared to this year’s car,” Hamilton said.
Brazilian Felipe Massa had been due to be in the car, with the Circuit de Catalunya watered overnight for a wet-tire testing session.
Stroll, 18, is to make his Formula One race debut in Australia on March 26 as the youngest and least experienced driver on the starting grid.
Although he completed 98 laps on Wednesday before the accident, the only Canadian on the grid has now brought an early halt to two of the team’s three days of testing and forced the abandonment of another.
On Tuesday the Canadian had spun into the gravel after 12 laps, damaging a front wing that the team could not replace without sending it back to the factory in England overnight by private jet.
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