Categories: FeatureFeatures

The two pre-season tests in numbers

Pre-season testing is over for another year, with a condensed schedule seeing eight days completed over a fortnight at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The teams were fortunate with stable conditions throughout the two tests, with dry and relatively warm weather providing the opportunity for plenty of track time. The majority ran their new cars from the first test, but Sauber only introduced the C35 ahead of the second week, with Toro Rosso also launching its livery before Tuesday's running.

As always with testing, teams are careful not to show their true hand and will run higher fuel loads or used tyres to make accurate analysis tricky. However, it was clear from the two weeks that Ferrari has the ability to set some strong headline times, with the Scuderia ending on top on five out of the eight days.

Such pace will not detract from Mercedes' achievements, however, with huge mileage for both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, while neither ran anything softer than the soft compound. Despite not trying the supersoft or new ultrasoft compound, Rosberg was still quickest on day one of the final test and set the third fastest time overall.

DRIVERS

With only one car per team running, comparisons between team-mates and drivers that didn't run on the same day can be difficult. So we've collated the following totals for all the drivers from both of the tests. Some drivers were more fortunate than others in terms of overall mileage, but you can see the best times and the tyres used to set them below.

Pos Driver Team Time (tyre) Laps
1 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:22.765 (US) 363
2 S. Vettel Ferrari 1:22.852 (US) 493
3 N. Rosberg Mercedes 1:23.022 (S) 656
4 N. Hülkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:23.110 (SS) 357
5 C. Sainz Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.134 (US) 514
6 F. Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:23.193 (S) 411
7 V. Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1:23.229 (US) 442
8 M. Verstappen Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.382 (US) 577
9 D. Ricciardo Red Bull-TAG-Heuer 1:23.525 (US) 456
10 L. Hamilton Mercedes 1:23.622 (S) 673
11 S. Pérez Force India-Mercedes 1:23.721 (SS) 295
12 K. Magnussen Renault Sport 1:23.933 (SS) 509
13 D. Kvyat Red Bull-TAG-Heuer 1:24.293 (US) 358
14 J. Button McLaren-Honda 1:24.714 (US) 376
15 F. Alonso McLaren-Honda 1:24.735 (S) 331
16 F. Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.760 (S) 452
17 A. Celis Force India-Mercedes 1:24.840 (SS) 162
18 J. Palmer Renault Sport 1:24.859 (S) 273
19 P. Wehrlein Manor-Mercedes 1:24.913 (US) 251
20 M. Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1:25.031 (S) 380
21 R. Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 1:25.255 (S) 256
22 E. Gutiérrez Haas-Ferrari 1:25.422 (SS) 216
23 R. Haryanto Manor-Mercedes 1:25.899 (US) 228

Tyres : US = ultrasoft, SS = supersoft, S = soft, M = medium, H = hard.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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