• ‘I feel well inside the car,’ says Button
• Red Bull suffer test day to forget
The first day of testing in Formula One, perhaps the phoniest of all phoney wars in sport, still saw McLaren emerge as the clear winners over Red Bull in brilliant Andalusian sunshine.
Jenson Button’s carefully understated satisfaction with his new McLaren disguised a private delight and excitement; the Woking team suspect that they could be on to a winner here or at least a car capable of challenging Red Bull’s swaggering dominance of last year, when Sebastian Vettel won 11 of the 19 races.
Red Bull, meanwhile, had a day of almost comedic mishap. Last season’s double world champions were frustrated for more than three hours after a flight into the town containing the rear-wing assembly had to be diverted to Seville due to early morning fog. They were further delayed when one of their truck drivers was stopped for alleged speeding. Designer Adrian Newey – eight times a constructors’ championship winner with three different teams so do not write them off just yet – shrugged: “The car didn’t catch fire and at least we did manage a few laps.”
This season – which starts in Melbourne on 18 March – will see cars with noses uglier than a warthog’s. So McLaren had already won the beauty contest by avoiding what has come to be known as the “platypus effect”.
Noses have been lowered for safety reasons in a redesign which should also help to restore some of the downforce lost through the banning of the exhaust-blown diffuser. But McLaren’s good looks were more than skin deep. A year ago both Button and Lewis Hamilton were desperately disappointed with the car with which they started the season.
On Tuesday, though, even a cautious Button’s eyes were gleaming. “Yes, it does feel very different to testing last year,” he said. “It’s been a good starting point. What we wheeled out this morning was a great base. I don’t know where it’s going to end up by the time we get to the first race but the important thing is the balance feels all right.
“So it’s a good starting point. I’m looking forward to working with it and I’m happy. There are no niggly areas with the car, it’s still the starting point and we didn’t do any set-up work to improve the balance. And you’re never going to start with a perfect car. It was just putting some miles on it really.
“But I’m very happy in the car. I’m in a good position. I’m really low, which I always like, trying to get as low as possible, the way that the car is. I’m much lower than last year. I can just about see out. I love that position. I feel well inside the car. I feel I’m part of it. Promising times. But we don’t know where we stand and we won’t do until the first race.”
Button, who went past the returning former world champion Kimi Raikkonen in one particularly impressive move going into the second turn, also predicted a more competitive season ahead when he said: “I think you are going to see the cars a lot more bunched up this season, especially at the start of the year and racing gets under way. As we improve throughout the season the field will split a little more but at the start of the year you are going to have a lot of cars that are within a few 10ths.”
Red Bull, however, remain the team to beat. They had the best car in 2010 and last year, with remorseless professionalism, they widened the gap. After his run on Tuesday Mark Webber said: “It was a shame we were a little late out. But we had a good run out.
“I’m not a big fan of the noses this year. Formula One cars should look beautiful and generally they do. I still think ours looks nice. Adrian always builds beautiful cars.”
They say it will be closer this year. But then they said that last year, too. Last year the brilliant Newey was linked with Ferrari and again he was asked about the prancing horse on Tuesday. But the most successful designer in F1 history said: “To be perfectly honest I can’t see myself going anywhere else. I’ve been very centrally involved with the team from very early on and proud we’ve been able to get from where we were, and the ashes of Jaguar, to where we are today.
“That in itself brings a huge amount of satisfaction and kind of a slightly paternal feeling of wanting that to carry on. To now leave for another team would feel a little like walking out on your children in a way.”