Mercedes Top First Pre-Season Test Of 2022 F1 Season

Mercedes topped the first pre-season test of the 2022 F1 season as the new generation cars made their official on-track debut at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain.

This three-day test was held behind closed doors but served as an opportunity for drivers and teams to understand the first cars to be ran under new technical regulations, which was reflected in the timesheets with three different overall chart toppers on each day.

Mercedes however finished as the team to beat heading into the second pre-season test following a busy test, which saw various data gathering programmes undertaken by every team on top of reliability issues and a wet-weather tyre test run.

Now, here is a full roundup of all three days of the first pre-season test.

 

Day One

McLaren’s Lando Norris was the first driver to experience the privilege of hitting the track just ahead of new Mercedes driver – George Russell who set the initial pace before Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen displaced him as drivers ran a mixture of C2 and C3 tyres.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc however proceeded to set the pace once he hit the track and eventually topped the morning session from Norris and Russell, as the trio were split by 0.619s at the lunch break.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was fourth quickest ahead of Tsunoda, Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Nicholas Latifi, Nikita Mazepin and Robert Kubica.

Leclerc, Russell, Vettel, Latifi, Mazepin and Kubica however handed their cars over to their teammates for the afternoon session, as Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton, Lance Stroll, Alex Albon, Mick Schumacher and Valtteri Bottas got behind the wheel.

Several drivers opted for a mixture of short and long run programmes during the afternoon session, as Schumacher and Bottas both encountered reliability issues for Haas and Alfa Romeo respectively which limited their running.

Norris meanwhile left it late to finish the opening day of testing fastest as he posted 1m 19.568 to top the classification from Leclerc by 0.597 seconds, whilst Sainz, Russell and Hamilton rounded out the top five ahead of Vettel, Tsunoda, Alonso, Verstappen and Bottas.

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Lando Norris	McLaren	1m 19.568	C4	103
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.597	C3	80
3	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.848	C3	73
4	George Russell	Mercedes	+ 1.216	C3	77
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 1.361	C3	50
6	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 1.708	C3	52
7	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+ 2.070	C3	121
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 2.178	C2	127
9	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 2.678	C2	147
10	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	+ 3.004	C3	23
11	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 3.192	C3	66
12	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+ 3.394	C3	23
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 3.759	C2	67
14	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 3.811	C3	66
15	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 4.937	C2	20
16	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo	+ 6.341	C2	9

 

Day Two

McLaren again were first out of the box for the second day as Daniel Ricciardo this time was the first driver to hit the racetrack.

Several teams however opted to focus on aero-rake data gathering runs in the morning session with Sainz soon setting the pace in a largely quiet session, until Schumacher spun his Haas at the start of the final hour at Turn 13.

Sergio Perez however brought out the first red flag of pre-season after he grinded to a halt on the exit of Turn 13 with a gearbox issue, which ultimately kept him in the pits for over half of the afternoon session.

Ricciardo meanwhile topped the morning session after he posted 1m 20.355 in the closing minutes of the morning session ahead of Sainz and Pierre Gasly.

During the lunch break, Hamilton, Sainz, Stroll, Albon, Bottas and Schumacher handed over the reins of their cars to Russell, Leclerc, Vettel, Latifi, Zhou and Mazepin respectively.

The afternoon session resumed in quiet fashion as nobody headed out in the opening ten minutes until Vettel ventured out in his Aston Martin with every driver focused on various programmes with their teams.

Mazepin however was the second driver of the day to cause a red flag after his fuel pump was found to be damaged, as everyone else otherwise enjoyed a quiet afternoon with Leclerc emerging fastest overall with 1m 19.689 on C4 tyres.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was second fastest and had recorded the most laps after managing 147 laps across the day, as Ricciardo, Russell, Sainz, Vettel, Perez, Mazepin, Albon and Guanyu Zhou completed the top ten.

Latifi, Stroll, Schumacher, Ocon, Bottas and Hamilton rounded out the classification for the second day of testing, with the latter two plus Mazepin, Albon and Schumacher having set their best times on C2 tyres.

Post session, Haas announced that they had dropped Uralkali branding from their car due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which meant that the American constructor fielded a white livery for the final day of the first test.

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1m 19.689	C4	79
2	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 0.229	C3	147
3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+ 0.599	C3	126
4	George Russell	Mercedes	+ 0.848	C3	66
5	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.857	C3	71
6	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 1.095	C3	74
7	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+ 1.741	C3	78
8	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 1.823	C2	42
9	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 1.842	C2	47
10	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	+ 2.196	C3	71
11	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 2.205	C3	61
12	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 2.231	C3	55
13	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+ 2.260	C2	66
14	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 2.475	C3	125
15	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	+ 2.599	C2	21
16	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 2.873	C2	40

 

Day Three

As teams gathered for the final day of the first test in Barcelona, it was a busy start as everyone quickly headed out on track for a mixture of installation and opening laps ahead of long runs.

Alonso however brought out the first red flag of the day less than a hour into the session following a minor hydraulic issue, which Alpine confirmed in a tweet before terminating their running for the day following further internal investigations in their pit garage.

Team Statement:

After further investigations in the garage following Fernando Alonso’s on-track stoppage earlier this morning, the team can confirm the issue was a problem with the hydraulics. A minor sealing issue led to a fire in the back of the car.#F1Testing

— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) February 25, 2022

Verstappen took advantage of the stoppage to squeeze in a quick flying lap on the restart as he posted 1m 20.683 on C3 tyres, before later improving to 1m 19.765, which was eventually bettered by Russell who posted 1m 19.608 on C4 tyres.

Williams meanwhile opted to give Albon and Latifi two hours each of running across both the morning and afternoon sessions, with Albon first out on track in the morning session ahead of Latifi who then headed out first in the afternoon before Albon ran in the final two hours of the day.

The final hour of running in the morning session however saw disruption as Gasly and Vettel both caused one red flag each, whilst Zhou caused stoppages twice as he first went off track then came to a halt on track.

Amidst the late drama, Russell again improved his benchmark by 0.375 seconds to 1m 19.233 as he finished top from Verstappen as the morning session concluded with Vettel rounding out the top three.

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	George Russell	Mercedes	1m 19.233	C5	61
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 0.523	C3	69
3	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 0.591	C3	57
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.598	C3	44
5	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 1.466	C2	54
6	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1.594	C3	62
7	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 2.009	C3	14
8	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 2.706	C2	38
9	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	+ 3.236	C2	40
10	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 3.419	C2	64
11	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 6.996	C3	9

During the break, F1 tyre supplier, Pirelli soaked the circuit in order to enable both them and teams to gather data in wet conditions ahead of the new season, with Ricciardo becoming the first driver to venture out onto the soaked track in the afternoon session.

A mixture of intermediate and wet tyre running soon became the initial case with every team but Williams opting to switch drivers for the afternoon session, until the intermediate tyre became the favoured tyre to conduct running on just under the hour mark.

Around 90 minutes into the session with the track now drying up quickly, several drivers switched to slick tyres as Sainz went quickest with 1m 24.276, as Haas withdrew from the afternoon running due to extensive repairs needed to the car after a technical issue.

Times soon afterwards began to tumble but Aston Martin failed to participate in the afternoon session due to an oil leak shortly before the lunch break.

UPDATE: Despite the team’s best efforts, we will not be running again today.

We’d like to thank the team for all their hard work. We go again in Bahrain. 👊 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/ke2z9EeddX

— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) February 25, 2022

Hamilton eventually emerged fastest of the afternoon runners with 1m 19.138 on the C4 tyre compound, which meant that Mercedes finished the final day of testing with the two fastest times of the entire test ahead of Red Bull as Perez finished third quickest ahead of Verstappen.

Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher all failed to get out in the afternoon session for Alpine, Aston Martin, AlphaTauri and Haas respectively, meaning that just 16 drivers completed the final classification.

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m 19.138	C5	94
2	George Russell	Mercedes	+ 0.095	C5	66
3	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+ 0.418	C4	74
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 0.618	C3	59
5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 0.686	C2	48
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.693	C3	44
7	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.934	C3	92
8	Alex Albon	Williams	+ 1.180	C4	94
9	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 1.561	C4	13
10	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+ 1.612	C3	86
11	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1.689	C3	52
12	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 2.104	C3	12
13	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	+ 2.801	C2	41
14	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 3.331	C2	40
15	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 7.912	C3	9
16	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	+ 11.295	C2	10

F1 will now head to Bahrain for the second and final pre-season test across 10-12 March at Bahrain International Circuit, which will host the season opener between 18-20 March.