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On Monday evening, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton ended the first day of pre-season testing fastest ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa and made an ominously fast start to F1 2017 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
The Mercedes W08 ran in impressive fashion all day, first at the hands of debutant Valtteri Bottas in the morning before Lewis Hamilton took over driving duties in the afternoon.Between them, the pair completed over 150 laps (in effect, two-and-a-half Spanish GPs) and have set the ground running for the remainder of the week.
The McLaren-Honda team was waylaid by an ‘oil system’ issue for most of the day and suffered another frustrating start to winter after the MCL32 broke down after just a single installation lap, necessitating a complete engine change and seven long hours of inactivity.
We also saw the Red Bull driven by Daniel Ricciardo broke down twice on the circuit with an sensor failure first and then a faulty battery; with the publically announcing to the media that these problems can be easily fixed as the session ended.
But F1 fans could have been forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu as Mercedes dominated. With Lewis Hamilton topping the timesheets with a time of 1.21.765 which was set on soft tyres and indeed faster than any lap recorded over eight days of pre-season action at Barcelona last year.
Hamilton finished ahead of Sebastian Vettel in second place (which is encouraging for Ferrari despite this being the first time in four years when Ferrari failed to set the fastest time on the opening day of pre-season action).
Kevin Magnussen ended the session in fourth place ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place (despite braking down twice), Valtteri Bottas in sixth place, Sergio Perez in seventh place and Carlos Sainz Jr in eighth place.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Nico Hulkenberg finished in ninth place on his first run in the Renault ahead of Fernando Alonso in tenth place after a difficult day and Marcus Ericsson in eleventh place.
Day One Timesheet
1) Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:21.765, 73 laps,
2) Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:21.878, 128 laps
3) Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:22.076, 103 laps,
4) Kevin Magnussen, Haas, 1:22.894, 51 laps
5) Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:22.926, 50 laps
6) Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 1:23.169, 79 laps
7) Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:23.709, 39 laps,
8) Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:24.494, 51 laps
9) Nico Hulkenberg, Renault, 1:24.784, 57 laps
10) Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 1:24.852, 29 laps
11) Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, 1:26.841, 72 laps,
Keep your eyes peeled at Driving For Pleasure as we will be covering all the days of the pre-season F1 test at Barcelona with our daily reports.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
