Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel tops day one at second pre-season test in Barcelona – Formula 1 news
Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time on the opening day of the second pre-season test at Barcelona.
The second test was a much awaited event as teams, drivers and fans alike wanted a clearer picture of where the cars stand in terms of preparedness for the upcoming season.
Vettel set the fastest time of 1 minute and 23.265 seconds. While no one was able to match the set time but some drivers came quite close to it. Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo was only 0.353 seconds behind Vettel’s time and finished fourth fastest of the
day suggesting that it will be much closer contest in the season unlike 2011. Although the fact that Vettel set the time on hard compound tyres shows that the RB8 can probably still take it up a notch.
It was a welcome display from the Red Bull camp as the results of the first pre-season test did not look as pretty as the team would have liked.
Marussia and Mercedes were the two teams unveiling their cars for the first time and both did a fairly good job at their respective standings in the sport.
Schumacher drove the W03 and finished with the sixth fastest lap time of the day at 1 minute and 25.711 seconds. The Mercedes car looks good and reliable now it has to match up to the pace of the higher end.
Lewis Hamilton also showed marked improvement in the McLaren car as the Brit was one of the two drivers who completed more than 100 laps the other being Charles Pic driving for Marussia. The showing displayed the reliability McLaren lacked in the first test
and with the third fastest lap time set at 1 minute and 23.590 seconds, he showed that the car has the pace as well.
Ferrari had some major issues during the first pre-season test like its other competitors and improved considerably during the Barcelona test much like their competitors. Fernando Alonso drove the Ferrari car and completed 75 laps during the day. His best
lap time was 1 minute and 24.100 seconds which stood fifth fastest on the day.
Bruno Senna drove the Williams and showed good signs as he set the best time of 1 minute and 25 .711 seconds placing him eighth in standing, he also completed a healthy 97 laps in the day. Sauber’s Sergio Perez was seventh in the Sauber.
The biggest setback of the day though was Lotus abandoning it running for the day as it had a severe issue with the chassis of the car. Romain Grosjean drove the E20 on the day and after completing only 7 laps he pointed out to the team that there was something
wrong with the car and it was not behaving properly. At first, the team decided to use the chassis that was used during the Jerez test but later decided that they needed to go back to their headquarters and look into the matter.
So far, it has been a good pre-season test and as drivers are spending more time on the track with the cars the level of competitiveness is also increasing and is shaping up to be a good start to the upcoming season.
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