BARCLEONA, Spain — Lewis Hamilton isn’t known for his love of preseason testing, but even the seven-time champion arrived early in the pit lane at the Circuit de Catalunya on Wednesday to witness the dawn of F1’s new era. He wasn’t due to drive his new Mercedes W13 until the afternoon, but with the morning sun still low in the sky he’d made his way from his motorhome in the infield to see what he was up against this year.
“This morning, arriving and walking down the pit lane and seeing all the different cars, it’s probably one of the most exciting and interesting seasons that I have ever embarked upon,” Hamilton said in a press conference before heading out on track in the afternoon.
“It will be interesting to see where everyone comes out and where we stand at the start of the first race.”
As he wandered down the pit lane, Hamilton lingered outside the Red Bull garage, keen to see what his rival Max Verstappen would be piloting this year. Of the ten new cars at the test, Red Bull’s was the only one that hadn’t been revealed before the garage doors went up on Wednesday morning.
The team’s launch a couple of weeks ago featured a show car rather than the real thing, and as the RB18’s yellow nose edged out of the garage on Wednesday it turned the heads of everyone in the pit lane.
The design of the Red Bull has been led by legendary F1 engineer Adrian Newey, whose cars have won 20 championships (drivers’ and constructors’ combined) over the past 30 years. Ideas from his drawing board have set F1 design trends under every regulation change of the past two decades, and there’s every chance the new RB18 will do the same.
The car features aggressively undercut sidepods, and a novel suspension setup with pull-rod at the front and push-rod at the rear — a feature only the McLaren MCL36 shares with the RB18 this year. It’s still too early to make predictions about…
Source : espn
