Barcelona I, day 1: Vettel tops morning session

Day 1 / AM Session – February 21st 2012; Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona

The first winter test in Barcelona got underway today, with Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 launching their 2012 challenger, the W03, this morning from the pit lane at the Circuit de Catalunya. However, it would be Double World Champion Sebastian Vettel who would make a lasting impression from the morning, posting the quickest time of anyone.

Sebastian Vettel covered a total of 38 laps this morning, claiming the top place on the time sheets on a late morning run, just about 15 minutes before the lunch break. Vettel managed a lap that put him just 0.097 seconds ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who, after an impressive morning in the VJM05, managed a solid 47 laps and kept his car in P1 for most of the morning.

Things got off to a slow start this morning when, like Jerez, temperatures on track and in the air were recorded just above freezing. As teams waited for the track to warm up, installation laps were completed, but fairly few actual timed runs were actually posted until well into the morning. However, once things got underway, just 0.876 seconds separated first place and seventh place on the timesheets as the cars and drivers adapted to the track.

Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren MP4-27 had a somewhat positive morning, finishing in third position overall and clocking up 45 laps, the same number of laps as fourth place sitter Daniel Ricciardo in the Scuderia Toro Ross, who was just 0.028 seconds behind McLaren’s World Champion. The STR7 was also showing no signs of any reliability issues which the team experienced in Jerez.

Fernando Alonso had another mediocre morning in the Ferrari F2012, completing 37 laps and slotting into fifth position, three quarters of a second off the pace of the Red Bull of Vettel. Just behind him was Michael Schumacher, who completed 43 laps in the newly launch Mercedes AMG F1 on medium compound tyres.

With only 29 laps to his name this morning, Sergio Perez was still able to get within a second of first place Vettel, putting his Sauber C31 in seventh.

Bruno Senna, who completed the second highest number of laps for a team this morning, 56 in total, was again focusing on general data collection for the car, and therefore resulted in a morning position of eight of the eleven runners, over 2 seconds off the pace.

After a strong and impressive session in Jerez, Romain Grosjean in the Lotus E20 was only able to manage 7 laps and a final position of ninth overall. The team would later announce that the cars chassis was to be sent back to their factory in Enstone for safety checks, and that the team would not run again today; a set back the team did not need this early into a testing session.

Kovalainen in the Caterham CT01 also fell victim to a technical fault early in the session too, completing just nine laps before bringing the car, and test session, to a stop early in the morning. The team and car would then not be seen for the remainder of the morning, resulting in tenth position overall.

Charles Pic, newly signed rookie with Marussia F1, would spend the morning putting as many laps as possible on the teams 2011 challenger, the MVR-02, as the team looked to give Pic as much driving experience in a Formula 1 car as possible. Although finishing dead last on the time sheets, Pic posted the highest number of laps for the morning session, completing a total of 65.

HRT, the twelfth and final Formula 1 team for 2012, are not running at the Barcelona test session as the team are still looking to finish their 2012 challenger.

Day 1 AM Session times and total lap numbers can be seen below: