Barcelona I, day 1: Hamilton quickest as 2017 F1 testing gets underway

Lewis Hamilton went quickest on the opening day of testing for the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship season, with the Mercedes driver edging out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by just over a tenth of a second.

This season sees the introduction of new rules aimed at making F1’s cars much quicker than previous generations and that promise was delivered upon by Hamilton, with the three-time champion posting a opening day best time of 1:21.765 – a full second quicker than the fastest time of 2016 pre-season testing, set by Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen.

Hamilton’s timesheet topper came two hours from the end of running and was set on soft tyres. The Briton also posted a total of 73 laps in the afternoon after taking over from new team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who logged 79 laps in the morning for an impressive Mercedes total of 152 laps. Bottas ended the day in sixth place with a best lap of 1:23.619.

In the morning session Bottas ran the new Mercedes W08 largely as seen at the car’s launch, without the ‘shark-fin’ engine cover present on the bulk of its rivals. However, when Hamilton took over in the afternoon, the defending Constructors’ champions introduced their own version of aerodynamic solution.

While Hamilton’s best time came on the soft compound wider Pirellis, Vettel managed to get to just over a tenth behind the Briton using the medium tyres. Indeed, Ferrari avoided using either the softer end of Pirelli’s range all day with the four-time champion moving to the hard compound at the end of the day. The German also recorded an impressive lap count, circling the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya 128 times.

It was a similar story at Williams, where Felipe Massa, returning to Formula One after a brief period of retirement, posted a total of 103 laps. The Brazilian’s best time, a lap of 1:22.076 set on soft tyres, put him third at the end of the day.

US team Haas had a positive first outing. New recruit Kevin Magnussen jumped to fourth late in the session with a soft tyre time of 1:22.894.

While the top three teams on the timesheet enjoyed enviable reliability, Red Bull Racing had a troubled first day. An engine sensor problem in the morning restricted Daniel Ricciardo to just four laps and then in the early afternoon a battery issue led to more garage time.

Ricciardo was able to rejoin the action in the last two hours of the session, however, and ran faultlessly to the end to post 50 laps and record the day’s fifth fastest lap. Behind him were Force India’s Sergio Perez, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.

There were problems too for McLaren. The team suffered an oil leak in the morning and though Fernando Alonso was able to run late in the afternoon he could only manage the day’s 10th best time, three seconds adrift of Hamilton. Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson was 11th on the day, just over five seconds off the pace.