Kamui Kobayashi plays down the fact he was the fastest man during pre-season testing in Barcelona
Kamui Kobayashi has moved to play down his fastest lap during the second pre-season F1 test in Catalunya, with the Japanese ace insisting that the times posted in four days of running in Barcelona weren't representative of the true pecking order.
The Sauber driver topped the times on Friday with what was the fastest lap of the week, setting his benchmark time on a short run on the final morning using the soft Pirelli tyre.
However, Kobayashi said he wasn't getting away by the fact he was top of the times, with other teams having been more focused on race simulation work rather than chasing a quick time – something Sauber is now set to focus on back at Catalunya next week.
"It's better than nothing, better than last for sure," he told
ESPNF1. "I don't think this is a real result and I know more than anybody about this situation. I don't think the
McLaren and
Red Bull are so slow."
Head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara also played down the pace shown by the C31, arguing that it was hard to make comparisons due to the differing programmes being run.
“It was another positive test day for us,” he said. “We started in the morning with some further aero comparisons and set-up work. Before lunch Kamui did qualifying runs. Qualifying was actually a weakness of ours in the last two seasons and we have to resolve this. This obviously requires proper practice. Kamui started with the medium compound before he used two sets of soft tyres, and in the end he got his first taste of the 2012 super soft compound. He did his fastest lap on the second set of softs.
“This lap time now stands as the overall fastest for this week, but of course this doesn't mean much because proper comparisons are never possible during testing with each team running different programmes. In the afternoon we did longer runs for race preparation.”
