Ferrari fastest in F1 preseason testing; Mercedes reliable

Despite the timings set by the cars being irrelevant in the first test, there were plenty of positives and negatives for all the teams.

However, when asked if he was concerned about Mercedes’ form, the Finn quickly played it down.

Mercedes again focused on getting as many laps as possible completed, and were so focused on getting mileage in their new model that Rosberg and Hamilton split the day’s running to ensure they remained fresh.

Vettel’s time of 1 minute, 22.810 seconds at the Circuito de Barcelona was nearly two seconds quicker than the pole position in Spain past year on the same track.

“It feels better than last year’s package, and that was the aim”.

Rio Haryanto had a hard start for Manor, spinning on his first day and crashing into the barriers on his second, but better to get that out the way now than in Australia.

Ecclestone said teams, who agreed the new qualifying format on Tuesday, had finally woken up and taken a step in the right direction with more change to come.

Red Bull, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso are all showing good signs of reliability and speed.

A new elimination-based system will be introduced as long as the teams do not find any major problems when they study it in the next days.

Triple Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton hailed his “fantastic” Mercedes after wrapping up the first pre-season test with another 99 laps before lunchtime on Thursday. “(The car) just keeps going and going and going”.

“It is a odd idea, as I don’t see it will make a massive difference”, rookie British driver Jolyon Palmer said. I’ve never done that in the past. The resulting inability to manoeuvre the rulebook to clip the heels of Mercedes exacerbates the problems in a sport inclined too much towards the powerful vehicle manufacturers. No one can tell, but it seems to be a good auto even if there are still many things to try out, ” the Finn world champion explains.

Are you a Formula One fan who harks back to the glory days of light cars, wide tyres and backfires that made your heart stop? “We are happy so far even if we know there are still a lot of things to do”. Unfortunately, we couldn’t run much this afternoon.

“I think the drivers should be consulted”. “I saw a picture the other day of an old Ferrari, the side pods were super low, it must have been the mid-80s kind of body work and it just looked sooo cool with… the wishbones really wide, nice slick tyres”.

“Today was disappointing after starting the first couple of days of the test so positively”, Alonso added. “With any group of people it’s normal, and the rate of improvement has been as we would expect”.