Testing day 1!

A summary of day one running in Barcelona by team in constructors order:

Mercedes:

In total Mercedes completed 127 laps with the majority of their laps (77) going to Russell and 50 laps completed by Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes finished fourth (Russell) and fifth (Hamilton) at the session’s conclusion with times of 1m20.784s and 1m20.929s both on the C3 compounds. Overall it was a promising day for them with no major hiccups. At testing it was revealed that they updated their cooling system to include louvres in the sidepods, similar to Ferrari. Mercedes’s louvres, however, seem to be less extreme than Ferrari’s, with a small outlet by the airbox on top of the sidepods. I would imagine every team will experiment with such a feature in some fashion. Today’s tests bode well for their title defense in 2022.

Red Bull:

With the introduction of the real RB18 (goodbye, show car), Adrian Newey has struck again. A new adaptation of the sidepods has been revealed with another unique design. With scoops leading air into the side pod intake, Res Bull’s take on the side pods is one of the most surprising interpretations of the new rules. Their running wentwithiut a hitch. Max Verstappen was in the car for both the morning and afternoon sessions. He put in the most laps of any driver at 147 which is more than double race distance (66 laps). This extended run time shows that the “Honda” -ish engine is at least fairly reliable. At midday, Red Bull switched to the louvres on the side pods, similar to the Mercedes team. I expect more experiments by all teams with this design feature. He ended up ninth in the standings setting a fastest time of a 1m22.246s lap on the C2 compound. This doesn’t mean they are in the mud for next season with the fifth fastest time, but it definitely raises eyebrows towards the defending champion.

Ferrari:

With a very impressive showing on the time sheets (ending the day in second and third) I think the Ferrari team is continuing to lead on the Leclerc fanboys. The Ferrari boys split their runnings with Leclerc running 80 laps in the morning with a best time 1m20.165s; he was the fastest of that session. Sainz ran 73 laps in the afternoon session with a close lap time of 1m20.416s. Both drivers’ fastest time was set on the C3 compound. Their sessions were similar to thode of Mercedes and Red Bull, but with a sweeter side of finishing 2 and 3 at the end of the day.

McLaren:

Lando Norris was the only McLaren driver out today completing 103 laps after having a small issue in the beginning of the afternoon session. The-race.com says the issue is due to the practice engine mode they were running. The young Brit ended the day in P1 only 1.127 seconds down from the lap record at the Circuit de Barcelona set by his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 2018. His impressive lap time of 1m19.568s on the softest compound ran today, the C4. This is a good start to their season that many papaya fans hope will be their breakthrough year.

Alpine:

El Plan.

Just kidding. The French team had a good day one with alonso running 146 laps today. After so much speculation of reliability and power unit problems in the Renault engine, they put those rumors to their grave for now. He finished in a respectable eighth place running the C3 tire setting a 1m21.746s lap, ahead of Verstappen. This is a pretty good finish for day one as we see the results of El Plan fold out.

Alpha Tauri:

With the front wing looking like Mansell’s famous mustache, Tsunoda did both sessions today completing 120 laps. This brings more confidence in the Red Bull power trains this year. He finished 7th on the C3 with a time of 1m21.638s. They did well on their first day of running with Pierre Gasly running tomorrow who will no doubt finish in the top 5.

Aston Martin:

The tradition of being the one team in the background last year continues again. No significant highs and lows with them today with Vettel running in the morning and Stroll running in the afternoon. Vettel’s best time in the morning stuck him 6th in the standings with a C3 time of 1m21.276s and running 52 laps. Stroll finished an unimpressive 13th with a C3 time of 1m23.327s. He got 67 laps in total. In my books they look to be a solid midfield team both reliability-and-performance-wise.

Williams:

Another team that had rumors of an unfinished car, they had a successful running in a day with minimal issues. With 66 laps for both Albon and Latifi, they had an impressive showing after talk of a 2019 situation earlier before their launch. Latifi finished 14th with a 1m23.379s lap time on the C3 tires and Albon in 11th with C3s as well setting a time of 1m22.760s.

Alfa Romeo and Haas:

Now we’ve hit the underperformance section. Why this team chose instead of a rookie to run their reserve driver in the morning escapes me. Kubica finished last with only 9 laps due to reliability issues. Their new driver Bottas had more luck, 12 laps more luck to be exact. He was able to set the 10th best time finishing with a lap time of 1m22.572s on the C3 compound. We’ll see how the next day goes, but this Swiss team’s seems to be on the backfoot already.

Haas:

Their day did not go so well either. Mick Schumacher had an early floor issue that kept him from running for much of the afternoon session. He only completed 23 laps but finished in 12th with the C3. Nikita Mazepin finished 15 with only 20 laps to his name. These two drivers need the most running as they are some of the newest to the sport, they will for sure be on

the backfoot if this continues. They appear to have the most developed car but wasn’t impressive.

Overall, I am intrigued that there aren’t any runaway teams unlike and every team had at least some running unlike in the first tests of the 2014. This gives interesting title aspects for the coming season. Maybe George Russell’s hopes of a five team title fight is true, and maybe we’ll see domination again and one of the teams is absolutely sandbagging. I am excited to see how each of the different interpretations will perform.