Barcelona Test: Vettel tops opening day

Two days after Max Verstappen became the youngest ever grand prix with victory in the Spanish Grand Prix, Formula One action resumed at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel topping the timesheet as the first in-season test of 2016 got underway.

Vettel finished third in last weekend’s race but the German and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen lost out to Red Bull Racing driver Verstappen and today Ferrari sought to explore the reasons behind the defeat.

Across a busy day Vettel got through 103 laps as he replicated race and qualifying conditions from the weekend. His quickest lap of the day, a 1:23.220 set on soft tyres, came in the afternoon session, as he worked through a full qualifying session simulation.

Following the Spanish Grand Prix, team boss Maurizio Arrivabene had isolated a lack of pace in the final sector as the chief reason behind Ferrari’s failure to win on Sunday and Vettel today set the fastest final sector of the day as the team addressed the issue.

Nico Rosberg, whose run of seven straight grand prix wins came to an end on Sunday in a lap one collision with team-mate Lewis Hamilton, was second fastest as he logged 119 laps. The German’s best time was also set on the soft tyre and at the end of the session he was 0.117s slower than Vettel.

Third place on the timesheet went to McLaren’s Jenson Button. The Briton set a time of 1:23.753 in the morning session, though the McLaren driver’s time came on the red-banded supersoft Pirelli tyre.

Haas’ Romain Grosjean moved even further down the Pirelli order as he opted to run the company’s new ultrasoft tyre for a late run that saw him claim fourth spot in the standings with a lap of 1:23.882. The ultrasoft will make its race weekend debut at the next event, the Monaco Grand Prix and the subsequent race, in Canada.

Grosjean has complained of extreme handling difficulties with his Haas in recent weeks ands he also took the chance to today test a new chassis.

With the French driver fourth, fifth place went to Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein. The German used the supersoft compound to set a time of 1:24.297, which was just 0.010s ahead of Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian spent much of the morning with an array of aero rakes fitted to his RB12 but last Sunday’s fourth-placed driver also got the chance to try an upgraded Renault power unit as he worked through 89 laps across the two sessions.

Ricciardo was followed in seventh place by Red Bull Junior programme driver Pierre Gasly who was on duty for Toro Rosso. The French youngster set a best time of 1:24.821 as he logged 78 laps. Alfonso Celis too P8 for Force India while Williams’ tester Alex Lynn debuted a radical rear wing on his way to ninth. Like Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon was testing the upgraded power unit in the works Renault and managed 105 laps.

Nico Rosberg (Mercedes): "It's good to be back in the car. I learned a lot and we made good progress - which is really important, as it's my only test day for the whole year, so I needed to make the most out of it and try to learn as much as possible. We did some suspension and setup work - just a few different small bits. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season - but my focus right is now on Monaco. We'll have to keep an eye on our opposition as always but I'm feeling confident and aiming for another win."

Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari): “I think it is a unique chance having the opportunity right after the GP to test at the same track, more or less on the same conditions. Saturday we struggled a bit so today we tried some stuff. We needed to have a good look at it, but this is not the only thing we were here for. For sure we tried to cover as much as possible in one day. I think Monaco should be a strong track for us, last year we were very competitive there. Now we have improved the car in the areas you need for that GP so I think it should help. Here in Barcelona we were as competitive as expected, with the exception of Saturday. Now we are not in the best position, we are not the favorites going to Monaco either, as the favorites remain Mercedes, but we try very hard and if there is a chance to win we’ll try to win. We go step by step, not looking too far ahead. I’m convinced that the chance is there.”

Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull): “So far we’re pretty happy with how it’s looking. We’ll see what they find tonight but generally it was all pretty reliable and everything ran as smoothly as it could have. We had a few new bits on the car that we tried; I guess there will have been some images of crazy stuff attached to the car this morning! But it all went pretty well. It’s not as exciting as a race weekend I can tell you, but we did some good stuff today. We got the important things out of the way and there’s another day left for the team here. Then we have three street circuits coming up, it’s going to be good fun!”

Alfonso Celis (Force India) : “It was a very positive day with a lot of mileage and some good work with different tyre compounds. It was interesting to come back here after winter testing: the track and weather conditions are quite different and the same applies to the car, so it took a few runs to adapt. I feel more and more confident with the car, but I am still treading carefully not to make mistakes: my priority is to do the job the team is asking me to do, but hopefully I’ll be able to push a bit more tomorrow.”

Esteban Ocon (Renault): “It was great to be behind the wheel of the R.S.16 for an entire day. We’ve had a pretty full programme but I’d happily do the same again. We completed the second highest number of laps today and I’m happy with how everything went. Of course, it would have been great to have gone for some fast laps with low fuel and soft tyres but that wasn’t the purpose of today. The team’s happy with all the data collected so it’s been great to contribute to the development of the car.”

Alex Lynn (Williams): I think we had a really positive day. We’ve run through everything, and probably more than we ever anticipated on the programme. We’ve had a lot of good running for the team in terms of the next few races, and got some good information. We did some good work on the medium tyre, and in the afternoon it was more Monaco based performance work.

Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso): “It’s always fantastic to drive a Formula 1 car and I’m happy with today. The most important was to do a good job for the team, as well as getting plenty of mileage under my belt. In the morning we completed aero tests and in the afternoon we focused on the car set-up. Unfortunately at the end of the day, when we were just about to go for some performance runs on Soft tyres, we had a little issue, so we had to end the day a bit earlier than planned… But I’m still pleased, as we could anyhow complete many laps today, which is always important for me to gain experience. This is my second time driving with Toro Rosso and I have to say I felt much more confident – knowing the team and the procedures better definitely helps. It doesn’t mean it’s less pressure on me, as you always need to deliver and do a good job, but the fact that it’s not completely new to me any more makes me enjoy the driving more. I look forward to another outing with the team hopefully in the near future.”

Pascal Wehrlein (Manor): “Today has been a positive day for us. We worked through a pretty big list of items to evaluate the new developments and also did some runs on the Supersoft later in the day. Obviously we didn’t run that tyre over the race weekend so it was interesting to have the comparison against the other teams with our updated package. For me it will be nice to focus on Monaco now, where I think we can have a better weekend as a result of the work we’ve done here today.”