F1 Madness

Tag: sebstian vettel

  • F1 2016 Pre-Season Test 1 Day 1: Vettel Tops the Timesheets

    F1 2016 Pre-Season Test 1 Day 1: Vettel Tops the Timesheets

    Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished the first day of the first pre-season test of 2016 on top of the time sheets ahead of defending champion Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W07 Hybrid.

    The German set his best time of 1:24.939 on the medium compound tyres just before lunch to take the top spot for the day. For the rest of the day it was testing as usual for Ferrari which seen Vettel rack up 69 laps.

    A few doors up the paddock, Lewis Hamilton racked up an astonishing 156 laps on the day. That’s 698km, which is just a little over two race lengths. “It’s good to be back. It really had felt like a while – but now it feels like home already,” said Hamilton. He finished second fastest on the day with a 1:25.409.

    Daniel Ricciardo finished third fastest clocking up 87 laps on the day after a bit of a slow start. This, in contrast to the previous season’s testing, seems like a big improvement from the team. “First impressions are positive but it’s still too early to say much more. We had a good day and I’m ready for more,” said Ricciardo at the end of the day’s running.

    Valtteri Bottas ended his day 4th fastest for Williams completing 80 laps. Bottas’ first impression of the car was that he feels many of the issues they’ve had last year have been fixed but he thinks its too early to say where they are in relation to the other teams.

    “Valtteri has been complimentary about aspects of the FW38 which is good start,” said the Chief and Test Support Engineer Rob Nelson.

    Carlos Sainz_2016 Pre Season Test 1“We are just building up our run lengths and doing our due diligence on reliability, and as the test goes on we’ll feed in more and more performance items. Overall it is a reasonable start to pre-season testing for us.

    Mexican Alfonso Celis was in the VJM09 for Force India. He finished 5th fastest with 58 laps to his name. Not far off his pace was Jenson Button in the McLaren MP4-31 finishing 6th fastest with 84 laps on the board. Button’s best time of 1:26.735 came courtesy of a late run on the soft compound tyres.

    Carlos Sainz was out for Toro Rosso today. The team chose not to have a big reveal in the pits and instead just emerged from the pits when the green flag dropped for the start of the day. Sainz finished 7th fastest with 55 laps under his belt. His session was cut short when the team saw something strange in the gearbox oil system. The team decided to stop their session as a precaution.

    Sauber, who ran an updated livery but a 2015 car, had Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of the C34. He placed 8th fastest on the day ahead of Manor driver Pascal Wehrlein. Wehrlein, on his first outing for the new look Manor team, clocked up 54 laps.

    New comers Haas F1 had a good start to their debut test until a front wing failure brought out the red flags. The team say that they have a fix for the wing and will have a replacement by Tuesday. The wing failure put Grosjean out for most of the day. He did, however, emerge from the pits with an hour left in the session to complete a few laps.

    Jolyon Palmer was 11th fastest for Renaul in the R.S.16. He had limited running owing to software issued on the car.

    POS Driver Team/Car Best lap Gap Laps
    1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari SF16-H 1:24.939 – 69
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid 1:25.409 +0.470 156
    3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12 1:26.044 +1.105 87
    4 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes FW38 1:26.091 +1.152 80
    5 Alfonso Celis Force India-Mercedes VJM09 1:26.298 +1.359 58
    6 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda MP4-31 1:26.735 +1.796 84
    7 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11 1:27.180 +2.241 55
    8 Marcus Ericcson Sauber-Ferrari C34 1:27.555 +2.616 88
    9 Pascal Wehrlein Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05 1:28.292 +3.353 54
    10 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari VF-16 1:28.399 +3.460 31
    11 Jolyon Palmer Renault R.S.16 1:29.356 +4.417 37

     

    Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1, Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula 1

  • Maldonado On Top of Time Sheets on Day 3 of Barcelona Test

    Maldonado On Top of Time Sheets on Day 3 of Barcelona Test

    Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado claimed the fastest time of the day on the 3rd day of the Barcelona test on the super soft tyres.

    Maldonado’s run in the afternoon seen him cross the line with a 1:24.348, 0.391s ahead of Max Verstappen in the Toro Rosso who also did a run on the super softs. “We achieved a lot today and it was great to complete so many laps and end the day as the fastest car,” said Maldonado.

    Although the rain started to fall later in the day the drivers still managed to put in a respectable amount of laps one the rain had stopped.

    The redesigned seal that was intended to fix McLaren’s MGU-K issue did not work as planned. This mean that Button had to run the day on reduced power completing only 24 laps for the day.

    Defending World Champion, Lewis Hamilton took third spot of the day ahead of Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber. Hamilton still battling an illness said it was very tough day for him physically. That didnt seem to affect his pace too much though and he completed a marathon 101 laps.

    After an out lap spin that put him into the gravel trap, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel completed the day with 105 laps with the 5th fastest time of 1:26.407 which was just marginally faster than Daniil Kvyat in the Red Bull. Apart from the out lap incident. Vettel enjoyed a relatively trouble free day out on track.

    Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas both drive for Williams on the day which seen Massa finishe 7th fastest and Bottas 9th fastest.

    Mercedes test driver Pascal Wehrlein was back at Force India today. He completed 81 laps with the fastest time for him on the day of 1:27.333 in the 2014 VJM07.

    2nd pre season test day 3