Report of 1st day of 2022 Pre-season testing

Event: Pre-Season testing
Track: Catalunya Circuit

Feb.23 - For us the 2022 Formula One season officially kicked-off today with the first of three days pre-season testing on Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona in sunny Spain.

The brand new cars were allowed to run 8 hours of testing today. With blue skies the day couldn't start-off in a better way. The "green" track was steadily warming up with plenty of sunshine around the Spanish circuit.

Morning session

Nine of the ten teams on the grid had taken to the track already before 9:30 (CET). The only one who had to enter track then the Haas team. Nikita Mazepin was scheduled to drive for the American outfit this morning, with Mick Schumacher in the car this afternoon. Hopefully both last year's rookies can now deliver consistent performances this season, and iron out any small mistakes.

In the morning there were no reliability issues, or at least, nothing obvious. No cars had stopped out on the track and there have been no red flags. The teams will all be pleased with the amount of data they have gathered up till then. Interestingly, it was the most often-discussed car that was topping the lap counter right away, with Verstappen behind the Red Bull RB18. It's still early times but surely the amount of laps, is usually a good sign during early testing.

George Russell testing the Mercedes W13 fitted with aero racks

New Mercedes driver George Russell topped the leader board with a 1:21.403 min in the morning for a while. A sign of things to come? Mercedes ran both drivers today. Lewis Hamilton drove 50 laps in the afternoon and that Mercedes remains a very decent looking car, having looked very solid earlier on under the guidance of Russell. The Mercedes W13 was already looking impressive. Finding grip where there is none and looking on rails through the corners.

Verstappen was the first driver that past the half-century of laps. That RB18 certainly was showing no reliability niggles so far. The same can't be said for the situation down at Alfa Romeo.

Robert Kubica was only able to drive 9 laps in the whole morning. The C42 spent a lot of time in the garage today. Kubica wasn't able to complete any laps at high speed, leaving him very much wanting more out there. That camouflage livery isn't hiding the fact that Alfa Romeo are having a troubled start to this morning's proceedings.

The Haas team also had some technical trouble and their morning session was interrupted by a cooling leak. Mazepin had the wheel of the VF-22 in the opening session, and he says there were some differences between the car on track and the simulator runs in the off-season.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc set the quickest lap time (1:20.165) in the the morning session with the curvy F1-75.

Afternoon session

In the afternoon Lance Stroll had taken over from Aston Martin teammate Sebastian Vettel for the afternoon session. While McLaren seemed to have some issues with the MCL36. Lando Norris has stopped at the end of the pit lane and the McLaren mechanics had to push the MCL36 back up to their garage, which is situated pretty far up the pit lane.

Charles Leclerc testing the Ferrari F1-75 at Catalunya circuit (2022)

Carlos Sainz had taken over the F1-75 from his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who topped the timesheets in the morning session and most importantly completed 80 clean laps. The Spaniard drove 73 laps to continue gathering more crucial data.

At 14:25 Lewis Hamilton hit the track in the W13 for the first time. The seven-time world champion claims to be as hungry as ever. He's also been cutting a very relaxed figure here today, and says of his 2022 charge:
"Whatever we start with today, whether it's good or bad, we'll work through it. We've always had a great development plan and workforce. This morning, arriving and looking down the pit lane and seeing all the different cars, I think it's one of the most exciting and interesting seasons that I've ever embarked upon. It will be interesting to see where everyone comes out and where we stand in the first race."

Verstappen drove the most laps with 147, which is more than two Spanish GP's around this track. Lando Norris was the quickest in the McLaren MCL36 on this first day. He was almost 0.6 sec. faster than Leclerc's time.

Quickest Lap Times 1st day of testing

✅ Check out the photos of the first day of 2022 Pre-Season F1 Testing in Barcelona »

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