Pre-Season Testing Barcelona – 1: The Complete Report

Formula 1 version 2016 made its grand debut this week during the first four days of winter testing at the Barcelona circuit in Spain.

Even though no confirmation was necessary, Mercedes came to remind everyone, and its competition in particular, that it would still be the team to beat for this new season: fast, efficient, and reliable, the latest creation from the reigning double world champion team already seems to be the team to beat for its pursuers. Without really seeking performance, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg completed the impressive number of 675 laps without any issues!

Behind, the Ferraris still made a strong impression by clocking very fast lap times, which could well challenge the announced dominance of the Silver Arrows. In another area, the Force Indias also stood out by presenting a reliable and fast car from the outset. However, confirmation of these performances in the second testing sessions in Barcelona is needed before drawing any conclusions.

These first four days also marked the grand debut of the American team Haas F1 Team, which, with Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, accumulated miles and thus experience in preparation for the first Grand Prix of the season on March 20th.

But before thinking about this deadline, the little circus of Formula 1 will meet again on March 1st for four more days of testing, still on the Barcelona circuit, to refine the setup of the new single-seaters.

Mileage that should allow McLaren to continue addressing its various reliability issues, which have once again prevented Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso from performing well. The 2015 situation seems to be repeating itself for the team from Woking. Nonetheless, the team maintains an optimistic outlook despite announced progress that has yet to materialize on the track. In fact, McLaren completed only 3 more laps than Manor, which is the team that drove the least during these four days. Worse still, newcomer Pascal Wehrlein outpaced the two McLaren drivers on the stopwatch…

In the meantime, here are the complete summary tables of these pre-season tests, the first part with the first table, including the best time of each driver as well as their number of laps completed:

In the second table are listed the best times by team as well as the total number of laps completed: