Vettel shows speed, Mercedes miles in testing

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time, ahead of world champion Lewis Hamilton, as Formula 1 pre-season testing started in Barcelona.

“It is better to be first in about a month’s time”, he joked. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was fourth.

Ferrari was the team that got closest to Mercedes previous year, with four-time champion Sebastian Vettel the only driver to win races in addition to the Mercedes’ duo.

The Mercedes driver completed 100 laps with two hours to go and by the end of Day One had brought the W07’s tally up to 155 laps of the 4.7km Circuit de Catalunya. However, Hamilton completed 66 laps to Vettel’s 36 before the drivers were taken off the track for a lunch break.

“We all want more and hopefully this auto will help us achieve it. Very excited to get on track and see how it feels”. It is an evolution so it doesn’t really feel any different, but that is a good thing.

Jenson Button, who put his retirement plans on hold to enter a 17th Formula One campaign, said: “Despite the ups and downs we saw last year, there were steady improvements all year long, and that gives us confidence in the design direction we’re taking”.

The US-based Haas team, who are joining F1 this season, had a hard debut, their new vehicle suffering a front wing failure on the main straight while Romain Grosjean was travelling at around 200mph.

Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg are likely to face a stiffer challenge from Vettel this season, with the former world champion entering his second season with Ferrari.

“There were a lot of things that needed improving for 2016”.

More pessimistically, he added: “It will be an interesting day”.

Indeed, Mercedes’ dominance in winning 32 of 38 Grand Prixs in the last two seasons has led to calls for rules changes to increase competition, whilst F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone claimed the sport was “the worst it has ever been” on Monday. The test sessions in Barcelona should indicate if any of its rivals have made significant gains – or if once again the fight will be for second place.

“Teams have not changed the concepts of their cars, so I expect the grid to stay quite similar to last year’s”, Force India driver Sergio Perez said.

Andy Cowell, MD-Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains: “To get the performance out of this new generation of Power Units, you need to chase efficiency”, explained engine chief.

The race season is nearing for Formula 1 and all teams are busy unveiling their 2016 challengers and getting pre-season testing underway. This season, with two extra races as the F1 calendar expands from 19 grands prix to a record-breaking 21, each driver is allowed five engines.