LEWIS HAMILTON FASTEST AS TESTING FOR F1’S NEW ERA GETS UNDERWAY AT BARCELONA
Alex KalinauckasMercedes’ Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time on the opening day of the first Formula 1 test of 2017 with a lap quicker than the fastest time set across all of testing in 2016. Hamilton, who took over at the wheel of the W08 from his new teammate Valtteri Bottas, set the fastest time of 1m21.765s on Pirelli’s soft compound tyre at around 4pm local time.
There were lots of interesting pointers from the day which we will analyse separately, for example the maximum speeds on the straights were around 330km/h, slower than last year as expected with these draggy cars, but the long run pace looked to be around 4 seconds per lap faster already.
That lap, one of the 152 Mercedes managed with its two drivers at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya today, was one second quicker than the fastest time seen in winter testing last year – which was a 1m22.765s by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen using the ultrasoft rubber – thanks to the wider tyres and higher downforce levels created by F1’s new rules.
Hamilton’s fastest time came on the second lap of a seven lap run, however the more significant point is that he soon went back out and completed a typical race stint of 21 laps where he set a time just 0.6s slower than his best effort of the day on the second tour before finishing the rest of the run in the 1m23s region. For comparison, with 23 laps of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix left to run, so with reasonably comparable fuel loads, the leaders were lapping in high 1m28s, which makes Hamilton’s times comfortably five seconds faster – one of the expected results of the regulation changes.
Behind Hamilton, Vettel was second fastest for Ferrari, just 0.113s adrift of the triple world champion’s best time. Vettel set his best time of the day at around 4.40pm using the medium tyres and he racked up 128 laps at the wheel of the SF70H. His fastest time came on the first flying lap of a 15-lap stint.
Felipe Massa ended the day in third place for Williams, 0.311s behind Hamilton. The Brazilian driver, who spent much of the day completing shorter stints – typically around five laps each with some slightly longer runs in the afternoon – also used the soft compound tyres to set his best lap at a similar time of day to Hamilton, and Williams was the only other team to break the 100-lap barrier with 103.
Kevin Magunssen finished his first test day as a Haas F1 in fourth place. The Danish driver eventually managed 51 laps in the VF-17 after his morning running was disrupted by an early problem that caused his car to stop at the pitlane entrance and a subsequent off at Turn 10 that broke his front wing just before the lunch break. Another driver who had to endure a disrupted day was Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. With just four laps on the board and barely an hour of the day completed, the Australian driver caused the first red flag of testing in 2017when his car stopped in the first sector due to a sensor failure.
Red Bull did not get out again before lunch and when it did, a battery issue confined it to the garage for much of the afternoon. But Ricciardo did return to the track during the final 90 minutes and he eventually completed 50 laps, with a best time of 1m22.926s. Bottas was the sixth fastest driver at the end of the day, finishing in front of Sergio Perez – who lost time with an exhaust problem – and Carlos Sainz, who completed 39 and 51 laps for Force India and Toro Rosso respectively. Nico Hulkenberg was ninth fastest on his first day driving for Renault, while Fernando Alonso made a late improvement to beat Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson to tenth place.
But Alonso and McLaren completed the fewest laps of any team during the first day after a series of issues cost them time. An oil system problem after just one lap stopped the MCL32 during the morning running and it did not return until the session entered the final two hours of the day. But when Alonso did finally reappear another problem struck immediately and he was forced to crawl back to the McLaren garage.
But the second problem only took a few minutes to fix and the double world champion was eventually able to take McLaren’s lap total up to 29 before the chequered flag came out at the end of the day.
Barcelona test one, day one, results:1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m21.765s, 73 laps (softs)
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m21.878s + 0.113s, 128 laps (mediums)
3 Felipe Massa Williams 1m22.076s +0.311s, 103 laps (softs)
4 Kevin Magnussen Haas F1 1m22.894s +1.129s, 51 laps (softs)
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m22.926s +1.161s, 50 laps (softs)
6 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m23.169s +1.404s, 79 laps (softs)
7 Sergio Perez Force India 1m23.709s +1.944s, 39 laps (softs)
8 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1m24.494s +2.729s, 51 laps (mediums)
9 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m24.784s +3.019s, 57 laps (mediums)
10 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1m24.852s +3.087s, 29 laps (softs)
11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m26.841s +5.076s, 72 laps (mediums)https://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2017/02/lewis-hamilton-fastest-as-testing-for-f1s-new-era-gets-underway-at-barcelona/ 
