F1 Testing: Day One Report
Today was the day that every single F1 fan long waited for. F1 cars, faster than ever, got back on the track and was giving us a glimpse on how fast cars are actually going to be. Fastest time of the Test Day One of 2017 was 1m21.765s, which is more than 3 seconds faster than 2016 Test Day One fastest lap time set by Sebastian Vettel (1m24.939s).
During testing, Mercedes also updated their car with the 'Shark Fin', but the fastest time was set when the team reversed to the original W08.
Not long after, L.Hamilton set his personal and session's best time of 1m21.765s (Soft Tyre Compound), Sebastian Vettel crossed the line with just 0.113s off the pace (1m21.878s Medium Tyre Compound).
Mercedes topped not only the time sheets, but they also did the most laps around Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya. Hamilton did 73 and Bottas did 79, giving the Mercs the total of 152 laps.
Scuderia Ferrari and Williams Martini Racing also joined the three-digit lap count elite club. That's 128 for S.Vettel of Ferrari and 103 for Felipe Massa of Williams.
The FW40 is showing pretty good signs as F.Massa was able to take the third place on the time sheets with the time of 1m22.076s (Soft Tyre Compound). That's 0.311s slower than Hamilton's fastest lap with the same tyre compound.
Haas are showing signs of life too, as Kevin Magnussen was fast enough to finish 4th with the time of 1m22.894s (Soft Tyre Compound), 1.129s off the pace. Meanwhile, Daniel 'The Honey Badger' Ricciardo, was wrestling his RB13 to the fifth place with the time of 1m22.926s (Soft Tyre Compound).
Ricciardo suffered a broken sensor on his car in the first stint of the session after doing only 4 laps. After some time, Daniel was able to get back on the track and finished his day on 50 laps in total.
Sergio Perez was able to put his VJM10 to the seventh place, despite the fact that Force India spent a decent amount of time repairing the broken exhaust. His fastest lap - 1m23.709s (Soft Tyre Compound). Perez was followed by Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso with 1m24.494s (Medium Tyre Compound) and Nico Hulkenberg of Renault with 1m24.784s (Medium Tyre Compound).
Today wasn't the best day for McLaren, as there was problems with the oil leaking for the MCL32. Fernando Alonso managed 1m24.852s (Soft Tyre Compound). Alonso was more than 3 seconds behind the fastest lap.
Marcus Ericsson finished the time sheet with the time of 1m26.841s. That's 5 seconds of the pace.
Today was quite an entertaining day, as we finally got to see all 2017 F1 cars on the track. And oh my, those cars are just beautiful. Hopefully tomorrow we will see the 'Sleeping Giant' [McLaren - Honda] finally waking up and putting some decent lap times. Also hoping for Sauber to improve, because they have made such a beautiful car and it would be a shame to see it at the back again. Let us know what do you think about 2017 cars and Test Day One performances of the teams and drivers in the comment section! Will get back to you with the report of the Test Day Two tomorrow!
