The highly anticipated regulation changes are now in full swing with all 10 teams running their new challengers in the first pre-season F1 track running at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The tests will last until Friday, 25 February before the second pre-season F1 test will be held in Bahrain between the 11th and 13th of March – one week before the Bahrain GP.
The first morning session of the inaugural running of the 2022-spec cars saw Monegasque Charles Leclerc top the time sheets for the Scarlet Red Scuderia while Briton Lando Norris managed to set the overall pace with a star performance in the afternoon by setting a time of 1:19.568 for McLaren.
Pre-season testing had all 10 teams running their new challengers purely for data collection purposes and reliability checks so this is not a true showing of all of the cards they possess. It does however, instil a nostalgic sense of hope to see the Ferrari and McLaren rivalry for top honours once again!
Carlos Sainz closed the day in third while George Russell finished fourth before Mercedes teammate Hamilton took over the W13 in the afternoon to take fifth place.
The dutch driver sporting the #1 number on the RB18 this season after winning his first championship title in 2021 closed the day as ninth fastest but also enjoyed the most laps with 147 to his tally – that’s 687.225 kilometres behind the wheel of the Spanish circuit at breakneck speeds!
Reliability niggles with both Ferrari powered Haas and Alfa Romeo cars saw the two lower order teams being the only ones to not complete a century of laps on an otherwise fairly uneventful day.
With more running over the course of today and tomorrow, five drivers are yet to get their first real taste of 2022 machinery with Esteban Ocon for Alpine, Daniel Ricciardo for McLaren, Pierre Gasly for Alpha Tauri, Sergio Perez for Red Bull and Guanyu Zhou expected to pilot the camouflaged Alfa Romeo.
