Barcelona I, day 1: Vettel quickest on first day

Nobody could touch double World Champion Sebastian Vettel on the first day of the winter test in Barcelona, as the Red Bull Racing driver ended Day 1 on top of the time sheets with a fastest lap of 1:23.265.

Vettel set the fastest lap early into the afternoon session before the team changed its focus to longer stints and heavy fuel loads for the remainder of the afternoon, having completed 79 laps in total. There were also no signs of the electronics problem that hindered the team’s progress at the winter test in Jerez. The fastest time was also set on Pirelli’s hard compound tyre. Vettel’s quickest time set this morning was on the medium compound.

The afternoon session also saw many teams dogged by various problems, restricting the amount of running time for the teams involved. This, along with different tests that needed to be run by the teams, meant that Vettel’s time improvement was the only one of the top runners this afternoon though, with the following positions of second to seventh remaining unchanged from the morning’s session.

Fellow countryman, and Sahara Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg finished a successful day in second position overall, just 0.175 seconds behind Vettel and a solid 97 laps worth of mileage added to the car and no reported issues from the team.

Lewis Hamilton remained third fasted on the time sheet, clocking the second highest number of laps of the day, 114 in total, and trialling a number of different setups throughout the course of the afternoon.

Although Daniel Ricciardo in the STR7 held on to the fourth fastest time today, his reliable car let him down early this afternoon. The car came to a stop on track mid-afternoon, bringing the second red-flag to the session and ending the team’s day.

Fernando Alonso could only manage fifth fastest of Day 1 in the Ferrari F2012, achieving 75 laps; 25 laps off his personal quoted target of 100 laps ‘minimum’ needed by the team each day in Barcelona this week.

Michael Schumacher’s afternoon, and day, also came to an early end when the team found a hydraulics problem with the newly launch Mercedes AMG F1 W03. Schumacher would finish the day sixth fastest having completed only 51 laps. His day ended over an hour and a half before the day officially ended. Mercedes will be looking to make up for lost time again tomorrow.

The Sauber team were yet another to experience a problem with their car in the afternoon session – the anti-roll bar needed adjusting, but due to its location, the gearbox of the car had to be removed and put back, a very time costly job. However, the team would be able to rectify the problem and Sergio Perez would make it back onto the track before the end of the session, finishing with a total of 66 laps for the day, and a quickest time of 1:24.219 good enough for seventh on the time sheets. He would also be the last driver to get within a second of pace setter Sebastian Vettel.

Bruno Senna had a somewhat quiet day, with the Williams FW34 running various general data and aerodynamic information collection tests over the course of the day. The reliability of the car meant Senna could add another 97 laps to the FW34’s mileage and achieve a final time putting him in either position.

A broken track rod on the Caterham F1 CT-01 in the morning left the Caterham F1 Team working hard to get the car back on track today. Having achieved only 9 laps this morning, completion of work on the car meant Kovalainen was able to re-join the track in the afternoon to add another 22 laps to the day’s work. Kovalainen finished the day in ninth of the eleven total runner.

As stated this morning, Lotus F1 found there to be a problem with Romain Grosjean’s E20 chassis, meaning it had to be sent back to the team’s factory in Enstone. The team would therefore not run for the rest of the day. The team hope to be back on track for tomorrow’s second session. The result meant that Romain Grosjean’s Lotus E20 would finish in tenth position on the time sheets; last overall of the 2012 challengers.

Rookie driver Charles Pic brought up the rear of the pack in his 2011 challenger Marussia Virgin MVR-02. The team’s aim was to give their new driver as much experience in a Formula 1 car as possible. Pic would complete a total of 121 laps today, the most of any team at Barcelona.

Day 1 final times and total lap numbers can be seen below. Day 2 starts tomorrow at 09:00 CET.

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