Lewis Hamilton keeps his cool during first testing of McLaren’s MP4-26 – Formula 1 news
Team McLaren tested its new car the MP4-26 for the first time on the track during the first day of the 2nd pre-season test session that took place in Jerez recently.
Lewis Hamilton claims that he did not try to “push” too much and just tried to complete the preliminary checks without the use of the use of the movable rear wing.
Lewis Hamilton completed 58 laps in the new McLaren and that is almost half the amount of laps the rest of the drivers completed. Most of the drivers completed around 100 laps but Hamilton’s McLaren was stripped in the garage by lunch time in order to ensure
that it was working according to the team’s expectations.
“Today was mainly about checking the car - not the most exciting day, but it was important to make sure everything was running okay,” Hamilton said.
However, the team tried to experiment and squeeze more out of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System in order to gain full advantage of the device.
KERS is a device which converts heat energy into kinetic energy before storing it for later use. After a certain amount of energy has been stored, the driver can use that energy as a sort of a “power boost” later on for more speed.
Since Pirelli is going to be the lone tyre supplying company for the 2011 Formula 1 season, the teams are trying to experiment and evaluate the new tyres and try to get used to the new tyre compounds introduced by them.
“We didn't do any particularly long runs, and I wasn't too aggressive with the car, but we learned a couple of useful things. The car feels good compared to last year's, which is positive. It feels like a good step over MP4-25,” Hamilton added.
Jenson Button is expected to test the new MP4-26 on the second day of the 2nd pre-season test session in Valencia and it is going to be interesting to see how he performs as compared to his teammate.
Lewis Hamilton had a great 2010 Formula 1 season as he finished in 4th place but challenged for the titles until the very last race at Abu Dhabi. Jenson Button had a great season as well but he was clearly not as good as his teammate.
The team is confident about the 2011 Formula 1 season and it is going to be interesting to see how they perform at the upcoming pre-season test session as compared to their rivals.
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