Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Formula One action is back! The opening day of the new Formula One season has begun, with the 2020 Grand Prix teams hitting the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for pre-season F1 testing!
New cars, new colour schemes, same tyres and much the same in terms of driving line-ups, Formula One racing 2020 style is here! Wednesday morning at 9am marked the first on track action of the new racing season, and with Barcelona once again playing host to the teams and drivers for what is sure to be a hectic six days of sandbagging and fine tuning, it was left to Mercedes driver Lewis Hamiltin to top the running at the conclusion of the opening day, the 35-year-old brit amassing a total of 94 laps on his way to quickest time, over three tenths ahead of Valtteri Bottas in second, himself a further four tenths in front of the Racing Point of Sergio Perez.
Robert Kubica would be on driving duties for his new team Alfa Romeo in the morning session, the newly minted ART Grand Prix DTM driver getting a first opportunity to sample the C39 before hand over to race drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi for the rest of the day. Kubica would total 59 laps on his way to 13th quickest time, performing the bulk of the system checks and exploratory laps in the brand new car.
Further down the field Williams would have a much better start to the season than this time last year, the Grove squad making it out on track first of all the cars, in the much more attractively liveried FW43, joining the action on time as first George Russell and then Nicolas Latifi took turns behind the wheel of the new car. With the former multiple championship winning outfit hoping for better things from 2020, it would be a solid start for the recovering squad, with both Russell and Latifi managing a combined 136 laps on their way to 9th and 12th places respectively in the final standings for day one.
As is always the case in pre-season testing, little genuine insight into the form-book can be gathered from the times set today, but its still fun guessing!
Pre-season testing continues tomorrow.
Formula One Pre-Season Testing Times (Day 1)
New cars, new colour schemes, same tyres and much the same in terms of driving line-ups, Formula One racing 2020 style is here! Wednesday morning at 9am marked the first on track action of the new racing season, and with Barcelona once again playing host to the teams and drivers for what is sure to be a hectic six days of sandbagging and fine tuning, it was left to Mercedes driver Lewis Hamiltin to top the running at the conclusion of the opening day, the 35-year-old brit amassing a total of 94 laps on his way to quickest time, over three tenths ahead of Valtteri Bottas in second, himself a further four tenths in front of the Racing Point of Sergio Perez.
Robert Kubica would be on driving duties for his new team Alfa Romeo in the morning session, the newly minted ART Grand Prix DTM driver getting a first opportunity to sample the C39 before hand over to race drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi for the rest of the day. Kubica would total 59 laps on his way to 13th quickest time, performing the bulk of the system checks and exploratory laps in the brand new car.
Further down the field Williams would have a much better start to the season than this time last year, the Grove squad making it out on track first of all the cars, in the much more attractively liveried FW43, joining the action on time as first George Russell and then Nicolas Latifi took turns behind the wheel of the new car. With the former multiple championship winning outfit hoping for better things from 2020, it would be a solid start for the recovering squad, with both Russell and Latifi managing a combined 136 laps on their way to 9th and 12th places respectively in the final standings for day one.
As is always the case in pre-season testing, little genuine insight into the form-book can be gathered from the times set today, but its still fun guessing!
Pre-season testing continues tomorrow.
Formula One Pre-Season Testing Times (Day 1)
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