Barcelona II, day 1: Mercedes begins to show its hand

After a first test last week in which it only ran Pirelli’s medium tyre, defending F1 champions Mercedes today began to show the kind of performance its new W07 car is capable of, as Nico Rosberg used soft tyres to top the timesheets by two tenths of a second from Williams’ Valterri Bottas, who used the ultrasoft tyres for his best lap.

With Mercedes once again splitting its running, Rosberg was in the car in the morning and his best time came in the final hour before the lunchbreak.

As with last week’s outings, Mercedes again racked up an impressive lap total, with Rosberg posting 82 tours in the morning and team-mate Lewis Hamilton getting through 90 in the afternoon.

Rosberg’s time today wasn’t the quickest of testing so far. That honour goes to Sebastian Vettel who last week ran 0.2s quicker than his compatriot’s time today. However, the Ferrari driver required the ultrasoft to set that benchmark, while Rosberg was ominously operating a full two steps up Pirelli’s range.

Bottas, meanwhile, gave Williams some cheer after a low-key first week for the British team. The Finn today got through a solid 123 laps on his way to the day’s second best time, with his ultrasoft lap coming in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso was a surprise third for McLaren, with the Spaniard’s best lap coming on the soft tyre. Of more significance for the Honda-powered team were Alonso’s largely trouble-free 93 laps, although the double world champion did bring out the red flags when he stopped just beyond the end of the pitlane at the end of the morning session.

Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen also caused a brief stoppage. After completing 42 laps in the morning to sit second on the timesheet, the Finn was in trouble early in the afternoon, stopping his car on the pit straight with a gearbox issue. Ferrari managed to get Räikkönen back out on track late on and he ended the day in fourth place and with 72 laps on the board. The Finn only used the medium tyre to finish 1.8s adrift of Rosberg.

Fifth-placed Daniil Kvyat also has reliability woes. In the morning the Red Bull Racing driver suffered a brake issue that led to small fire at the back of his car. The fire led to a lengthy sojourn in the team’s garage and he would not return to the action until midway through the afternoon. The Russian then ran briefly on the soft tyre to rise to fifth.

While Rosberg has carried out qualifying runs in the morning, Hamilton spent the afternoon working through a race simulation. As a result, he champion was just over two seconds slower than his team-mate in claiming sixth spot.

Behind the Briton, Max Veratppen was seventh for Toro Rosso and the young Dutchman also posted the single largest lap count for the day with 144. He was followed on the timesheet by Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, with the Brazilian giving the Swiss team’s new car its track debut following a first week running last year’s C34.

Renault driver Kevin Magnussen also brought out the red flags, right before the end of the session, but up until then the Dane had worked through an impressive 119 laps. Behind it was a troubled day for Haas and Manor, with the former stopping early in the day with fuel system problems and the latter encountering an oil leak that cost the team much of the morning session.