IndyCar race-winner Colton Herta felt he was close to lapping consistently at the limit after his two-day test for McLaren this week.
Herta, who joined McLaren’s test programme in March, drove last year’s MCL35M at the Autodromo do Algarve in Portugal on Monday and Tuesday this week.
“I did get really comfortable in the car,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “I could feel the limit, maybe not the consistency that would come with a few more [testing] dates, but I felt like I was close.”
He covered 162 laps – almost two-and-a-half grand prix distances – at the Portuguese track which F1 raced at in 2020 and 2021.
“It was a lot of fun,” said the Andretti IndyCar driver. “A great two days getting acclimatised to the car, which is obviously quite a bit different to what I’m used to driving. A little bit of a different driving style. But the engineers were very helpful getting me up to speed.
“And what a car, what a car to drive. It’s really special not only to have a first test in a Formula 1 car, but in a race-winning Formula 1 car is even cooler.”
Even for a driver who has raced cars which average over 375kph at Indianapolis, the performance of an F1 car struck Herta.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“Letting off the pit lane speed limiter and all the torque it’s pretty incredible. Even when you’re in such low rpm, it’s still pulls. That was the biggest thing for me, the straight-line speed, the acceleration and the braking.
“Obviously, the cornering speeds were higher than what you would get in an IndyCar, but it didn’t stick out to me as much as how impressive the acceleration and how easy it was with all this horsepower to put the throttle down. That was the biggest thing.”
Another significant difference was the power-assisted steering, which gave “a completely different feel”, said Herta. “Obviously, the feeling that you get from an IndyCar is way different, a lot because of the lack of power steering. So the overall kickback and smoothness of the wheel doesn’t really transcribe to what you’d get in a grand prix car.
“So that was something to get used, slowing down the hands. Obviously the speed’s a lot higher on the road courses. But overall, it was good to get a feeling and a taste of what these things can do.”
Herta “felt comfortable right away” in the car but said it took until later in the test to begin putting his best lap times together. “I felt like I got…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…