“It’s been an awesome day”, a beaming Hamilton said.
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“The team did a fantastic job – digging very deep to find all sorts of innovations in areas that might have been considered static”.
McLaren, which unveiled its new vehicle on Sunday, is expected to show improvement compared to previous year, although it’s unlikely to be enough to allow the team to start contending for podiums or victories, which could mean another frustrating season for two-time world champion Alonso and Button.
Vettel’s best lap was 0.47 seconds quicker than Hamilton, doing little to diminish the sense that Ferrari may offer a closer challenge in 2016.
Williams has also kept the same driver lineup for the third consecutive year, with Brazil’s Felipe Massa partnering with Valtteri Bottas of Finland.
Seven other drivers tried out their cars on the first of four days of testing in Barcelona.
Among them were newcomers Haas, for whom Romain Grosjean finished 10th after 31 laps in the Ferrari-powered VF-16, despite suffering an early front wing failure. Renault returned with their own team.
Sebastian Vettel completed Monday’s first day of pre-season testing as the fastest driver out on track but it was Lewis Hamilton who amassed the most laps.
However, after dominating the sport for the past two seasons, Mercedes s reliability sent another warning shot to the rest of the paddock as Hamilton racked up a huge mileage of 155 laps – almost twice as much as anyone else.
The final test sessions for the 2016 season are scheduled for March 1-4, also in Barcelona.
Vettel is to drive Monday-Tuesday for Ferrari before teammate Kimi Raikkonen takes over Wednesday-Thursday. I felt at home straight away. But after Ferrari and Mercedes, in terms of pace, came Williams, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and McLaren.
“While the vehicle may look very similar to its predecessor from the outside – as is inherent within stable regulations – underneath there are quite a lot of mini revolutions that make up an overall evolution for the new season”, technical director Paddy Lowe said.
“The result is that Formula 1 is the worst it has ever been”. I wouldn’t spend my money to take my family to watch a race. After that it was tested in the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
And it is the recent dominance of the German team which Ecclestone believes is one of the major problems with F1.
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The auto was driven by reigning and three-time Formula One Drivers’ Champion Lewis Hamilton. “We’re now running at more than 47 per cent thermal efficiency and producing historic highs of power – and all with an ICE (internal combustion engine) restricted to consuming fuel at a rate of just 100kg/hr”.
