Palmer: “Red Bull hid, watch out for McLaren” | FormulaPassion.it

In a few days F1 teams and drivers will be back on track in Bahrain for the only session of official tests in view of the debut in Sakhir scheduled for Sunday 20 March. In Barcelona we had a first taste of 2022 in the three days of pre-testing at the end of which the Mercedes W13 was the fastest car, while overall the car that convinced the most was the Ferrari F1-75 as regards laps and speed with the medium compound C3.

Jolyon Palmerchampion in GP2 in 2014 and starter in F1 with Renault in 2016 and 2017, is now part of the team of opinion makers of the official F1 team and according to him the car that most hidden its potential at Montmelò was Red Bull : “In Bahrain it will be the team to follow with more attention, because in my opinion it is the one that has shown least what the 2022 car is capable of doing. Verstappen covered many laps in the first day of testing and in the morning when he wanted to push a a little more was interrupted by the red flags ”.

Ferrari and McLaren were Barcelona’s ‘surprises’ in terms of competitiveness. Palmer was impressed with both: “Ferrari has unique forms and was fast with both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and this is a very good sign. McLaren downplayed its performance, but on day one it was the only car straight away ‘right’ with the balance. Lando Norris was able to push right away because the MCL36 was the car that suffered less from understeer in medium-slow speed curves. McLaren was certainly the best car among those in the center of the group and Ferrari has all the credentials to return to compete with Red Bull and Mercedes at the top of the category ”.