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Graham Read
Formula 1 Correspondent
7:48 PM 1st March 2019
sports

Vettel’s Ferrari Tops The Timesheets In Pre-Season Testing

 
Sebastian Vettel gets to know his new Ferrari...
Sebastian Vettel gets to know his new Ferrari...
The pair of four-day Formula 1 pre-season test sessions at Spain’s Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya have now been completed and it was Ferrari’s multiple champion Sebastian Vettel who set the fastest overall time, although reigning champion Lewis Hamilton almost matched him in his Mercedes.

Both Vettel and Hamilton will be all too aware though that it is very unwise to get carried away with this initial success as all sorts of factors such as fuel levels, tyre choices and weather conditions can affect who achieved what and when. However, it’s also true that regardless of these factors it’s obviously always better to be at or near the top of the timesheets than languishing somewhere near the bottom and we’re almost certainly going to see these two protagonists battle it out again this year for the Drivers title, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen perhaps joining in too.

...whilst Lewis Hamilton does likewise in his latest Mercedes
...whilst Lewis Hamilton does likewise in his latest Mercedes
It’s also a welcome relief for the teams if their new cars can run with reasonable reliability as well as speed and all ten outfits managed to undertake a significant number of laps, although electrical, cooling and exhaust gremlins afflicted some of them at times. Williams joined testing a couple of days late due to delays with the preparation of their new car and it seems like they still have much work to do to rise from their position at the bottom of last year’s Constructors Championship standings.

A lone Mercedes pounds round past the empty grandstands which will be packed come Spanish Grand Prix day on 12 May
A lone Mercedes pounds round past the empty grandstands which will be packed come Spanish Grand Prix day on 12 May

Renault driver Nico Hülkenberg focuses on the job in hand
Renault driver Nico Hülkenberg focuses on the job in hand
Apart from the relentless pounding round the circuit getting to know and improve their new mounts in real conditions rather than on a simulator, there were incidents too as a wheel rim failure pitched Vettel off the track into the barriers at high speed earlier this week, but fortunately he emerged unscathed even if his Ferrari didn’t. Red Bull’s new driver Pierre Gasly also had a big off which left him a little shaken and his car significantly damaged. Driver safety is of paramount concern, but the teams also rue the lost testing time whilst their cars are repaired following offs.

Some teams may or may not have been sandbagging, as it is known, where they deliberately avoid showing the true pace of their new challenger, but what is certainly true is that we will only discover the true capabilities of each team and driver when they take to the track at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia in two weeks’ time for the opening Grand Prix of the new season.

However, for the record here are the ten drivers who went fastest during the Barcelona testing.

1 Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 1m16.221s
2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +0.003s
3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.010s
4 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) +0.340s
5 Nico Hülkenberg (Renault) +0.622s
6 Alex Albon (Toro Rosso) +0.661s
7 Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) +0.677s
8 Carlos Sainz (McLaren) +0.692s
9 Romain Grosjean (Haas) +0.855s
10 Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.863s