F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Who ran furthest in pre-season testing at Barcelona?

If the disastrous situation faced by McLaren-Honda wasn't already stark enough, their desperate plight has been exposed by the raw data on mileage and laps completed in pre-season testing.

McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne between them completed only 425 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in eight days of testing. Alonso himself accounted for only 190 laps, compared to Vandoorne's 235.

By comparison Mercedes pumped out more than double the number of laps of their rivals with 1096 laps in the books. Valtteri Bottas was the single busiest driver in Spain, undertaking 628 laps in total or 2923km.

Next up was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who chalked up 591 laps or 2751km at the Spanish Grand Prix circuit. Lewis Hamilton was third in the mileage charts with 468 laps (2179km) completed.

Vettel's team mate Kimi Raikkonen ran a third fewer laps than Vettel, just 365 laps or 1699km. However he came away with the prize of best time of the fortnight when he put in a flying lap of 1:18.634s on the final day. Overall Ferrari completed 956 laps or 4450km to be the second busiest team of pre-season testing after Mercedes.

In terms of engines, the Mercedes power units run by the works team, Williams and Force India cars accounted for 12480km, while the Ferrari power unit which is also used by Haas and Sauber completed 11447km.

The Renault engine ran less than half that number - 5498km - but that figure only accounts for the Renault Sports F1 team and the Toro Rosso. The badged Tag Heuer engine in the Red Bull adds another 3184km to that amount for a total of 8682km. However all the teams ran fewer laps than they did in 2016 - in particular, Toro Rosso completed only just over half its previous year's pre-season test distance.

Even so, the figures show just how exposed Honda now is. With only one team (McLaren) running their power unit it was always going to be a case that the Japanese manufacturer would run the lowest number of laps of any engine provider in testing.

With persistent electrical problems for the McLaren MCL32 manifesting throughout both four-day tests, the Honda lasted only 1978km. Multiple engine changes were needed during the two weeks, and the car's best stint lasted just 11 laps which leaves the engine manufacturer over 10,000km behind Mercedes in terms of total mileage and test data.

(Figures in brackets are the equivalent mileage and lap count for teams in 2016. Mileage figures have been rounded to nearest km.)

Mercedes 5102km (6023) 1096 laps (1294)
Valtteri Bottas 2923 628
Lewis Hamilton 2179 468
Ferrari 4450km (3975) 956 laps (854)
Sebastian Vettel 2751 591
Kimi Räikkönen 1699 365
Williams 3724km (3984) 800 laps (856)
Felipe Massa 1927 414
Lance Stroll 1797 386
Sauber 3668km (3900) 788 laps (838)
Marcus Ericsson 2071 445
Pascal Wehrlein 894 192
Antonio Giovinazzi 703 151
Force India 3654km (3626) 785 laps (779)
Esteban Ocon 1699 365
Sergio Pérez 1624 349
Alfonso Celis 331 71
Haas F1 3328km (2206) 715 laps (474)
Kevin Magnussen 1717 369
Romain Grosjean 1611 346
Red Bull 3184km (3803) 684 laps (817)
Max Verstappen 1615 347
Daniel Ricciardo 1569 337
Renault 2779km (3612) 597 laps (776)
Nico Hülkenberg 1462 314
Jolyon Palmer 1317 283
Toro Rosso 2719km (4883) 584 laps (1049)
Carlos Sainz 1429 307
Daniil Kvyat 1289 277
McLaren 1978km (3305) 425 laps (710)
Stoffel Vandoorne 1094 235
Fernando Alonso 884 190

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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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