McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton happy for Bahrain Grand Prix postponement
Although the announcement of postponement of the Bahrain Grand Prix has disappointed many in Formula 1, the McLaren driver, Lewis Hamilton believes it will serve his team well.
The announcement of pushing the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead was made on Monday evening. Bahrain's Crown Prince, Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa told the Formula 1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone that he believes that the government needs to take care of the chaotic
situation before they can be ready to hold a race. Understanding the current political turmoil in the country, Ecclestone agreed to shift the Grand Prix near the end of the season’s calendar, although no date has yet been announced.
Commenting on this, the 26-year-old driver stated, "I am not too unhappy about the world championship only starting in Australia, because it gives us more time. We have some catching up to do and not a lot of time until the season starts."
The British squad was one of the few teams that launched their 2011 cars after the first pre-season test session, at Valencia. McLaren ran the first session with its last year’s interim version while the new car was launched on 4th of February,
a day after the first testing ended. The late launch gave the team some extra time to finish the car, as the driver admitted that it reduced the valuable time for the team to practice.
He exclaimed on Tuesday morning that he was not disappointed with the decision of the FIA for not holding the race at the originally scheduled time. He commented that the early life of McLaren's new car, the MP4-26, has not been trouble free. Hamilton feels
that the last two testing sessions have only given them a little time to check the reliability of the car and performance risks. The 2008 champion believes that still the team needs to do a lot more to make it stand amongst the best cars on the upcoming grid.
While talking to the media earlier today Hamilton said, "We are trying to understand how the car, the tyres and all the systems work together. We are not yet in the position to do 140 laps a day, like Webber did.”
Now, the season opener will be held in Australia while the decision of the last practice session is yet to be made. It will be interesting to see how the teams manage to adapt their respective cars to handle the conditions in Australia.
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