Hamilton: You are always looking at dashboard now

Lewis Hamilton has shared his early-season views on how drivers are expected to cope when using both KERS and the new adjustable rear wing this year. As he is testing with an interim version of McLaren’s 2010 car in Valencia, the 2008 World Champion will not be using the new downforce-increasing system until the second test session in Jerez next week.

“Straight away when I went out, my third lap was my quickest of the day, so it’s very easy to get back into it and I wasn’t as rusty as I thought I was going to be, so it’s good," Hamilton laughed when in discussion with GPUpdate.net following his sole day of Valencia running on Wednesday.

He then explained McLaren’s in-car arrangements with regards to KERS, which makes a return after being out of action last year due to a gentleman’s agreement amongst the teams.

“In the simulator it feels quite cool but when we have KERS it will vary quite a lot," he began, initially referring to the rear wing.

“They’ll be a lot to think about and to do during the lap and you have to segment it by certain percentages, so maybe out of Turn 3 you’ll use 20 percent and out of Turn 6 use 45 percent, so if they break that up into four or five times you’re always having to look at the dashboard. You really have to focus extra hard – and now we have that and the rear wing as well."