Lewis Hamilton seemed confident about the pace of the McLaren when he spoke to the media in Barcelona. The McLaren driver compared the car to last years MP4-24 which was woefully slow at the beginning of the season.
“We’re in a much stronger position than we were last year,” he said.
“After driving last year’s car here this feels light years ahead. When we came here last year we were way off the pace and the car didn’t feel too good. We’re definitely in a much stronger position, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
With the different fuel loads being run by teams, it’s difficult to gauge any performance from the times, something Lewis is well aware of.
“We don’t really know what everyone is doing, but there are quite a few cars looking very fast,” he said. “It seems like the Red Bull is pretty quick, the Sauber is very quick, the Mercedes kind of looks quick, the Toro Rosso looks quick.”
Despite the competition, Hamilton and McLaren are focusing on improving their own performance, rather than worrying about how quick everyone else is.
“Clearly there are some teams that are extremely fast. We’re just focusing on our programme. We feel we’re doing a good job, but we’ve got work to do – we don’t feel like we’re the quickest and we’re not comfortable. We’re just trying to maximise the days.
“I don’t know whether we can do a 20.6,” he said, referring to Nico Hulkenberg’s blisteringly quick lap in testing on Friday which put him top.
“We’ll wait and see, but I haven’t been out on the same fuel loads as some of the others have – we’re doing a slightly different programme.
“I’m sure over the next couple of days we’ll get a much better understanding of whereabouts we are at the moment.” He added.
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