Notes from the Barcelona testing
Lewis Hamilton in Turn Four – perfect use of steering and throttle, plus the correct minimum speed, gives him a straight car mid-corner. The rest, from the point, is a piece of cake
Bruno Senna at Turn Four in the Williams: mid-corner, he has managed to convert initial understeer into oversteer. Lovely to watch but lots of time going away here
Barcelona looks lovely in the late winter, and so it is that 2012 F1 cars gleam in the yellow sun, starbursts of florescent orange, or a deep aquatic blue suddenly catching the shaded eye. For all that, I actually found it quite difficult to see the cars in action on Tuesday, February 21. I headed straight for Turn Nine of course, because I love to watch F1 cars swallowing blind, fifth-gear corners, but I came away confused. Lewis Hamilton flew through first, in that chrome-and-orange -“No plans to change the nose at this stage” – McLaren – and he was impressive enough: he tore into the corner without a lift in fifth, then grabbed fourth two-thirds of the way through it, as the tyres scrubbed away speed. Astonishingly, though, Nico Hulkenberg , to my eye, looked every bit as good at this point of the circuit in the Sahara Force India – as did Fernando in the Ferrari. It was only when Bruno Senna appeared in the Williams FW34-Renault, car understeering pretty much from entry to exit, that I could see the first three in any kind of relief. On the plus side, they were all mind-blowingly quick – quick, neat and very, very tidy. Read more…
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