Vettel tops opening day of Barcelona test

40

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time of the in-season test in Barcelona as Ferrari sought to learn from its Spanish Grand Prix struggles.

Ferrari had looked competitive throughout practice over the race weekend but was off the pace in qualifying and lost out to Max Verstappen's Red Bull in the race. As a result, Vettel said Ferrari was making use of the "unique chance" to test on the same circuit on Tuesday and he duly set the pace with a 1:23.220 on soft tyres.

Vettel's time came in the afternoon session when he was simulating the qualifying conditions from Saturday at the same time of day. While his overall lap time was only 0.1s faster than his Q3 effort, Vettel did set the fastest final sector of the day as Ferrari also worked on its weakness in that part of the track.

Nico Rosberg was second fastest as he racked up 119 laps having not managed more than four corners in Sunday's race. The German was 0.117s slower than Vettel on the soft compound tyre, having carried out the majority of his running on the mediums.

Teams have free pick of tyre compounds during the test and Jenson Button set the third fastest time on supersofts. Button's lap came in the morning session and saw him top the standings at lunch, but his effort of 1:23.753 was later beaten by both Vettel and Rosberg.

Romain Grosjean went one step softer for Haas and used the ultrasoft tyre late in the day. The compound allowed Grosjean to set the fourth fastest time - 0.6s off the pace - while testing a new chassis following recent struggles with the handling of his car.

Another driver to try the supersoft compound was Pascal Wehrlein in the Manor, who was fifth quickest, just 0.010s ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. Ricciardo was able to try the B-spec Renault power unit and managed 89 laps throughout the day.

Williams caught the eye with some interesting rear wing additions during the morning session as it ran a radical set-up to work on aero balance, with development driver Alex Lynn going on to complete 86 laps in total. Like Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon was testing the upgraded Renault power unit in the works car and managed 105 laps on a productive day.

AS IT HAPPENED: Barcelona post-race test - Day 1

Spanish Grand Prix - Quotes of the weekend

DRIVER RATINGS: Spanish Grand Prix

Technical gallery: Spain

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.