Bottas clocks up century as Raikkonen goes fastest

The first F1 pre-season testing of 2017 is now underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, marking the first proper outing for the new F1 cars. An oil system problem completely barred Fernando Alonso from the morning session yesterday-he would go on to turn just 29 laps in the afternoon-and rookie Stoffel Vandoorne, in his first proper run in the new MCL32, was plagued by problems that necessitated a complete power unit change.

As such, no team begins by trying to set the fastest possible lap times.

Hamilton’s quickest lap of 1min 21.765sec was three seconds faster than the quickest time recorded on the first day of testing past year, suggesting that the regulation changes over the winter that were created to give the cars more grip and downforce have led to greater speed.

Hamilton completed an exact race distance – 66 laps – in the morning, before handing the auto over to Valtteri Bottas in the afternoon as Mercedes continued its programme of alternating sessions between its drivers.

Mercedes dominated the first day of Formula One preseason testing on Monday, sending a message that the overhaul of regulations may not derail the three-time defending champion.

Formula One teams started their pre-season testing in Barcelona at the Circuit de Catalunya to get their cars in ideal condition for the start of the 2017 Formula One season in less than a month.

Williams also managed a lot of running with Felipe Massa posting 103 laps and finishing third. Magnussen was able to return to the pits for repairs but was limited to just 51 laps overall.

Having driven for Mercedes throughout the morning, Bottas was bumped down to sixth by a late Ricciardo improvement. “Lots of laps and information gained so we can try to improve the auto”, BBC quoted Lewis Hamilton as saying. This is materialising itself this season in cars that will require more strength to drive but has also manifested itself in the controversial radio bans of last season, which were universally poorly received.

Even more encouragingly for Ferrari, Raikkonen’s time came on a slower soft tyre compound to the supersofts Hamilton used in posting his best effort of 1 minute 20.983 seconds. Obviously it’s a completely different vehicle anyway, different from the Williams it behaves quite differently. but it’s still a auto. It’s different from the Williams, behaving slightly differently but it is still a vehicle with four wheels, and nine and a steering wheel. They completed 975 laps in 2014 and the highest numbers of laps in testing in 2015 and 2016, with 1,340 and 1,294 respectively, all three were a precursor to the seasons of utter dominance that followed.

Hamilton and his new team-mate Valtteri Bottas managed 162 laps on Tuesday, 54 more than Kimi Raikkonen and almost double that of the Red Bull driven by Max Verstappen.