McLaren’s Lando Norris set the fastest time on the opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Norris set a time of 1:19.568s during the closing stages, having already moved fastest earlier in the final hour, to finish over half a second clear of morning pacesetter Charles Leclerc.
Norris’ time was just under three seconds slower than last year’s Spanish Grand Prix pole time.
Carlos Sainz, who took over the reins of the Ferrari F1-75 after lunch, finished third overall.
Norris set his best time on Pirelli’s C4 tyres while the Ferrari pair both used the harder C3s for their best respective laps.
With times fairly insignificant during testing focus was on reliability rather than performance – and most teams had a productive day.
Overall the 10 teams racked up over 1,000 laps during the course of the day, which ran across two four-hour sessions, with no red flags.
Last year’s top three teams were the most productive on a fine and sunny day.
Ferrari’s drivers combined to complete 153 laps while reigning World Champion Max Verstappen began his title defence in ninth, having amassed 147 laps, ahead of Sergio Perez’s full day in the RB18 on Thursday.
Mercedes pair George Russell and Lewis Hamilton – who were fourth and fifth respectively – completed 127 laps between them. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso also set the same number of laps.
At the opposite end of the grid last season’s bottom two teams had relatively leaner days.
Alfa Romeo tester Robert Kubica completed just nine laps in the morning while Valtteri Bottas began his stint with his new team in interrupted fashion, amassing a meagre 23 laps.
Haas also had a couple of setbacks throughout the course of the day.
Nikita Mazepin was able to complete only 20 laps in the morning after a cooling leak was detected on his VF-21.
Mick Schumacher took over during the afternoon but his program was interrupted due to floor damage.
They were the only two teams not to reach a century of laps across the course of the day.
Testing will resume at 09:00 local time on Thursday.
| # | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | L. Norris | McLaren | 1:19.568 | 103 |
| 2 | C. Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:20.165 | 80 |
| 3 | C. Sainz | Ferrari | 1:20.416 | 73 |
| 4 | G. Russell | Mercedes | 1:20.784 | 77 |
| 5 | L. Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:20.929 | 50 |
| 6 | S. Vettel | Aston Martin | 1:21.276 | 52 |
| 7 | Y. Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | 1:21.638 | 121 |
| 8 | F. Alonso | Alpine | 1.21.746 | 127 |
| 9 | M. Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:22.246 | 147 |
| 10 | V. Bottas | Alfa Romeo | 1:22.572 | 23 |
| 11 | A. Albon | Williams | 1:22.760 | 66 |
| 12 | M. Schumacher | Haas | 1:22.962 | 23 |
| 13 | L. Stroll | Aston Martin | 1:23.327 | 67 |
| 14 | N. Latifi | Williams | 1:23.379 | 66 |
| 15 | E. Ocon | Alpine | 1:24.456 | 19 |
| 16 | N. Mazepin | Haas | 1:24.505 | 20 |
| 17 | R. Kubica | Alfa Romeo | 1:25.909 | 9 |
Discussion about this post