Lewis Hamilton was full of praise for the MP4-27 on Wednesday after completing 120 laps, thanks to several race simulation runs.
The British driver admitted he was ‘susprised’ by its performance through the high-speed corners, going as far as to say the 2012 car is already better than last year’s McLaren.
“It’s actually been quite a surprise, the car is handling really well in high-speed corners,” he said as the second days testing came to an end. “I think the baseline of the car is better than last year’s. And the characteristics of the car mean it is actually better than last year’s.
“We have made some changes to be able to enable that, but it’s been performing better in turn three and turn nine than I expected and just as good as it was last year. So knowing at some stage we will have some upgrades, I think that we will be even better in the high-speed [turns].”
The 27-year-old seems confident that McLaren can challenge the front of the grid by the time they come to Melbourne, but when probed on Red Bull’s pace, he admitted they looked ‘a little faster’.
“I think we were always out at the same time doing the runs,” he said. “I was always on used tyres and I think he started with new tyres in the second couple of stints. But generally I think he looked very, very competitive, perhaps a little bit faster than us. But again, we don’t know what fuel loads they were on – it’s much too early to say. But when I was behind him his car looked like it was handling quite well.”
When asked if he’d back himself to secure pole position if there was a qualifying session organised for tomorrow, he replied: “Definitely not, why would I do that? Especially if there was money on it! I would say the Red Bulls are probably quickest at the moment.”
