Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen can look back on a great first day of testing in Barcelona. He drove the most laps of all drivers. This is important with a view to preparing for the season.
With 147 laps, the Dutchman drove a total of 684.28 kilometers on the Spanish circuit. It was not about the lap times on the first day of testing today. Verstappen came in eighth, McLaren driver Lando Norris was the fastest of the day. However, the times can also give a distorted picture, because it is not possible to see whether the drivers give everything and drive with a full or almost empty tank. In addition, the drivers drove with different tire compounds.
Verstappen was allowed to drive all day, while competitor Mercedes divided the morning and afternoon between George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. They came together to 127 laps. Ferrari completed the most laps of all the teams: Charles Leclerc completed 80 laps in the morning, Carlos Sainz added another 73 in the afternoon.
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For the top teams it is a good sign that the cars continued to function during the first day of testing. Haas and Alfa Romeo did less well. The US team was plagued by technical difficulties, which resulted in Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher only completing 43 laps together. At Alfa Romeo, a broken part ruined it for test and reserve driver Robert Kubica, who couldn’t get past 20 laps in his morning session. Thursday they have something to make up for on the second test day of this week.
Surprising RB18
Red Bull caused quite a stir at the start of the test day. As expected, the final RB18 looked very different from the model Red Bull initially showed at the unveiling. Including the side pods of the RB18 are quite different from the rest of the field. Whether that will benefit Red Bull is still difficult to assess, but in any case, Verstappen seems to have enough confidence in his car after the first day of testing and he did not often have to return to the garage.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl