Vettel finishes first in day one of the second test

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel posts the fastest time in day one of the second test in Barcelona after completing 171 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.

Vettel produced the fastest lap of 1:20.396 on the medium compound tyre this afternoon whilst Valtteri Bottas finished only two-tenths behind on the soft tyre. Certainly on this track, there’s not a lot of variation between the tyre compounds. Max Verstappen’s fastest time of 1:20.649 in the RB14 was enough to place him 3rd in the timing sheets.

With little milage covered in the first test due to cold conditions, the Formula One teams soon made up lost ground. All teams, except McLaren covered more than 50 laps.

Lewis Hamilton, the current World Champion, drove the Mercedes car after lunch. He took his time going up the pecking order but eventually set a time of 1:20.808 to place himself in 4th.

Toro Rosso driver Gasly finished in 5th place showing promising gains with the Honda engine until a brake system issue appeared forcing them to cut their lap count short. This is the first real signs of trouble in pre-season testing for Toro Rosso.

Kevin Magnussen of Haas posted a 1:21.298 in the early stages of the test and never managed to improve on it. It was enough to place him in 6th in which the team should be pleased with.

McLaren found themselves in trouble once again stopping on the track twice due to a power failure. The first of these stoppages came in Vandoorne’s instillation lap and the latter appearing only one hour later.

The team thought they had fixed the problem and managed to get the car back out on track after lunch but another problem, this time a hydraulics issue ended the day for McLaren.

The two Renault drivers, Hulkenberg and Sainz finished 7th and 8th respectively.

It wasn’t the best of days for Williams as Sirotkin best of 1:21.588 only placed him in 9th whilst teammate Lance Stroll brought up the rear finishing last in 13th, 2.541s behind the leader.

Perez (1:21.643), Ericsson (1:21.706), Vandoorne (1:21.946) held up the bottom part of the timing board without making much progression.