I´ve had my winter holiday this week. The perfect week to have a holiday because I´ve been able to follow the second pre-season test session held in Barcelona very closely. More perfect this would have been only if I had had the chance to travel to Barcelona and watch the tests live! Which I unfortunately couldn´t do. Tuesday and Wednesday would have been such perfect days with both Sebastian and Kimi testing their cars under the Spanish sun! Luckily there´re pages like Autosport live commentary which you can follow and get an idea what´s happening on the track. Though one of my friends kept wondering how on earth I could stare at the commentary page for the whole day with no live pictures... Well, as far as Formula 1 is concerned it wasn´t even difficult, haha!
So which teams will be the ones to fight for the championship this year? I don´t think we can draw any definitive conclusions after this second test session, either but there´re things that caught my eye. First of all: in spite of the major amount of technical issues Lotus seem to have a very fast and competitive car! Although Kimi had the fewest laps on Tuesday the pace was definitely there as the Iceman was 2nd on the standings after the first test day. There was a data issue that restricted Kimi´s testing and he could only run short stints. On Wednesday the team had to change Kimi´s gearbox and Kimi was able to run only 4 laps in the morning session. But as soon as the E21 was back in shape Kimi drove staggering lap times immediately. So in spite of the teething problem Lotus will be strong this year. This is my hunch.
Red Bull had very strong two first days when Sebastian was testing the RB9. Their pace seems convincing once again and the RB9 has proved to be reliable as well. It was no surprise that Sebastian was topping the timesheets in the morning of the day two. In addition to Red Bull we´ve also seen Rosberg in Mercedes, Perez in McLaren and Alonso in Ferrari topping the timesheets. Personally I´ve been surprised by Mercedes´s performance. Although Hamilton has played down all expectations that the team would be there to challenge the top teams for the championship this year. But let´s put it this way: I would be more surprised if Hamilton didn´t win a race during the upcoming season! McLaren is kind of a question mark for me. They are quick for sure but Button has stated that the team don´t understand their car perfectly yet. At times it feels good, at others it doesn´t. So McLaren seems to be struggling with their car at the moment. And there´s also been talk about the tyre degradation which has been quite hard in the cold weather of Barcelona. But at least the new Pirelli tyres are easier to get into the right temperature so the teams seem to be pretty satisfied with the new compounds.
When thrilling Formula action is on there always seems to be a fuss about something. At Barcelona it was caused by the exhaust layouts of both Williams and Caterham teams! The brand new FW35 was revealed on Tuesday at Barcelona just before the first test day got underway. I don´t have too much understanding for the technical details and as far as this "exhaust-gate" is concerned I don´t even know if the layout really is illegal or not. But the experts have said that if Williams´s exhaust layout will be declared illegal by the FIA it won´t be a catastrophy for them in terms of performance. And we don´t even know yet what Williams´s final version of the FW35 will look when heading to Melbourne. There´s still one test session to go and a lot of new parts to be tested so the cars will change quite a lot from what they are now. But as Formula 1 is all about technical innovations there always seems to be a fuss about something!
Another continuous topic in Formula 1 seems to be the Finnish Lotus ace Kimi Räikkönen. As the Iceman was unable to run his car on Wednesday morning due to the gearbox change the Finn decided to have a sleep while his car was being repaired. And instantly it was number one news that Kimi had a sleep during a test day! Just wondering what the headlines might have been if the Iceman had had an ice-cream while the team was fixing his car (just referring to a certain Malaysian grand prix back in 2009...) ;) So there always seems to be some kind of a "Kimi-gate" as well :D I love Kimi as he stands out of the crowd for who he is. Not because what he says but because what he does. He is completely honest and doesn´t try to pretend to be something that he´s not. There´s something similar to that in the German Red Bull ace as well. In a recent interview Sebastian commented his thoughts on social media. He said that he sees absolutely no point in sharing every minute with the world. I respect that attitude a lot. In spite of the fact that as a huge fan of his I would absolutely love to read his tweets or Facebook updates. But I love this charasteristic in both Kimi and Sebastian that they feel no need to show off or be in the limelight when off track!
Now I´m eagerly looking forward to the final pre-season test session next week. Maybe my view on the true pecking order will become clearer after that. And hopefully no more teething problem for Lotus next week!
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