Lando Norris went quickest as the 2022 Formula 1 cars hit the track together for the first time on Wednesday in Barcelona.
The McLaren driver was first on track in the morning and would post a 1m19.568s in the afternoon on the C4 Pirelli tyres, the second-softest in the range, putting him six-tenths clear of the field.
Ferrari’s new F1-75 has made a stir ever since it was launched, and the early signs are positive as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished P2 and P3 on the C3 tyre, which was the most common compound used.
The Scuderia also racked up the most laps, managing 153 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix circuit between their drivers.
Mercedes sat as the third quickest team with fourth-placed George Russell’s morning best of 1m20.784s a tenth quicker than teammate Lewis Hamilton, who ran after lunch.
Sheeesh ? pic.twitter.com/ctIt8VUtDW
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) February 23, 2022
Sebastian Vettel was sixth in the Aston Martin, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso, who both managed over 120 laps each for AlphaTauri and Alpine respectively.
At the start of the day, all eyes were on Red Bull as the RB18 finally made its public debut after the team used a showcar in their launch.
The bold design with its ultra-aggressive sidepods certainly didn’t disappoint, but it was a steady start as world champion Max Verstappen put in 147 laps but only the ninth-best time overall.
After all the intrigue following their showcar launch, now we know what #RedBull was hiding…
Look at those sidepods! ?#F1 #Formula1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/d8pZRt0gYY
— InsideRacing.com (@INSIDERACINGcom) February 23, 2022
Persistent niggles limited Alfa Romeo to the lowest team tally of 32 laps on Wednesday, although Valtteri Bottas did manage some running late on to finish 10th.
The Swiss team’s reserve driver, Robert Kubica, would manage just nine laps in the morning and finish bottom of the standings in 16th.
Williams put in plenty of laps, but lap times were lacking with Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi three seconds off the pace and outside the top 10.
Finally, Haas ended the day as the slowest team as a cooling leak in the morning and floor damage in the afternoon limited the team to just 43 laps.
Remarkably, for the first day of testing, there was no red flags and only a couple of off-track moments during the eight hours of running.
If that continues, teams will have plenty of data by the time we get the season opener in Bahrain in just over three weeks time!
Full results from Wednesday can be seen below:
