Ferrari's Carlos Sainz says the new engineering marvels that have been put on track this season by teams have reminded him of the beauty of Formula 1.
Despite the prescriptive nature of the sport's new technical regulations, which many feared would lead to a uniformity of designs, the array of new hardware that was put on track in Barcelona showed significant variance.
Although there are many common design themes within the field, there are also areas where engineers have applied their own original interpretation of the rules.
"We know the work that has been done in a year and a half, there have been things that I have liked and things that I have not," Sainz told Spain's AS website.
"It is what we come to the tests for, to discover things about our car and not stop to think about what the others are doing.
©Ferrari
"Everyone has surprised me, because of how different we are from each other when the engineers talked about such restricted regulations.
"It makes you think and it reminds you that F1 is beautiful, I like to see those differences and the imagination of each group of engineers, even if we all reach a similar level later."
Like his driver, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto was equally impressed with the surprising variety of concepts displayed at F1's first pre-season test in Spain.
"It's very early to judge but I can see that we are all very close which was one of the objectives of the new regulations," said Binotto.
"It is quite impressive to see that we are so close straight from the start.
“And if you look at the cars, they are so different, which I think no one was expecting, so many differences between the design and shapes which is great for F1.
"But again, when you look at the lap times, certainly there will be differences but it was not as huge as the difference in design."
©Ferrari
Sainz added that while the Scuderia's new F1-75 is logically very different to its predecessor, the innovative design also feels quite different on the track.
"It differs in many things, I notice it above all in the driving style," he said. "We can slide a little more.
"Before you would slam the wheel and go around the corner, now it seems we can play with the cars a bit more.
"Last year’s cars were designed to go straight. It had a lot of downforce, but when you lost the car, it would go completely off."
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