Hamilton – Ferstappen: How 2022 began for the two Formula 1 gladiators with the new cars

While Lewis Hamilton said Mercedes had to overcome some obstacles brought by the new W13, new champion Max Ferstappen said the new RB18 is a very balanced car with enough dynamics.

At the end of yesterday’s final day of testing on the Catalan track, Hamilton and Mercedes drove the best time in three days – albeit with the softest of all erasers (C5). Ferstappen was six tenths away but with two steps harder rubber, the middle C3. However, both said that the times so far are in no way indicative of the true speed of each car.

Hamilton said Mercedes had to overcome some issues in these tests – and one of them was the cars bouncing on the straight due to ground effects – but he said he was happy with the W13’s reliability.

“These three days were interesting. They were not the easiest and smoothest for us”said the Brit. “Undoubtedly, we had some obstacles that we had to overcome. But we worked a lot and of course we always want to do more laps, but I’m happy with the last day. I did almost 100 laps in half a day so that’s not bad. We’ve been a little behind the last two days.

The car drives very differently than in previous years, as do the tyres. But we are working on it. The whole team did a great job this week and also at the factory. So now we need to download all this data and process it as best we can next week to get our walk right. In the first week you never know who’s in charge, you never know. We have no idea where everyone is”completed.

For his part, Ferstappen was more optimistic: “Everything worked fine while we were out on track and the car worked well. But with the red flag holidays we could not finish our program. But we kept going and I think that was the main goal in the Barcelona tests. The good thing is that the car works smoothly “said the Dutchman.

The champion concluded: “I don’t care about the times, not yet. I’ll see when we get to that Q3 from Bahrain. I just look at each lap individually and try to understand every aspect of the car. I enjoyed her ride RB18 This week it has good stability and balance and it shows a lot too cool “.

Ferstappen’s optimism was shared by other RBR members. The other driver, Sergio Perez, said: “We have a good base and enough momentum. It’s early days but I think we can make a good step ahead of Bahrain.

“I think the challenge this year will be to get the best out of the car every three days under the new regulations.”. And technical director Guillaume Rocklen added that the tests ““They promised a lot and the most gratifying thing for me is that we have a good foundation and direction to build our next steps.”