After many people within the sport spent nearly a year hyping up this season’s Formula One cars, we’ve finally gotten to see them on track at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.
Thursday marked the fourth and final day of the first preseason tests at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix. While we still have plenty of questions we’d like answered during the second Barcelona test, which begins March 7, this first outing gave a lot of clues as to what the 2017 season has in store.
These are our five takeaways from the first week of F1 preseason testing:
Estimated drop in lap time seemingly was dead on
Everybody up and down the paddock has claimed 2017 F1 cars will look more purposeful, but more importantly, shave lap times by four to five seconds. Although there’s no way to know how much fuel teams were running this week, what engine mode they were in or what the goals of their test programs were, we still can say with some confidence that was an accurate prediction. On Day 1, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen both beat Hamilton’s 2016 Spanish Grand Prix qualifying lap time of 2:22.00 that earned him pole, and lap times continued to fall throughout the week. There seemed to be about a three-second difference around Barcelona between the 2016 and 2017 cars, so we wouldn’t be surprised if that reaches four seconds by the end of next week.
New cars are difficult to drive
Rookie Lance Stroll spun his Williams FW40 on his first day behind the wheel, damaging the team’s only available front wing and forcing it to cease running for the day. It wasn’t just newcomers that got caught out by the new cars, though, as veterans such as Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen each went off track once, with Bottas’s incident occurring in nearly the same spot as Stroll’s. The new cars are more physically demanding than any F1 racers in recent years, and even Hamilton said Stroll is unlucky to have gotten his big break in a year that presents such a challenge.
McLaren-Honda not yet on top of reliability issues
With Fernando Alonso completing just one instillation lap on the first day, and Stoffel Vandoorne limited to 40 laps on Day 2, it was a rough first test for McLaren. Ahead of the 2017 season, Honda redesigned its power unit, placing a greater emphasis on performance, as it said it couldn’t find enough power from its original design. However, the week wasn’t as much of a disappointment as it might seem. Yes, the purpose of testing is to gauge your car’s baseline performance, it’s also to sort out any reliability issues before the first race. It’s better McLaren have these issues now, so it can run a more complete program in the second week, than have them on the formation lap in Melbourne, Australia.
Mercedes still class of field
Many fans hoped the new regulations would shakeup the running order, but it seems they might again see the “Silver Arrows” running up front. The team had strong pace all week, going fastest on two of the four days, and it dealt with any reliability issues it had in a timely manner so it didn’t miss too much time on track. The prospect of a W08 that’s as strong as the three cars before it might not be appealing for fans, but it’s hard to not be impressed by the constant stream of championship-contenders to come out of of Mercedes’ engineering department.
Ferrari might have gotten its act together
Scuderia Ferrari is looking to put its underwhelming 2016 season far behind it, and it’s off to a good start. Like Mercedes, the Scuderia topped the time sheets on two of the four days of testing. On both occasions, the SF70H was being wielded by Kimi Raikkonen. Additionally, Sebastian Vettel said the new car essentially righted everything he disliked about its predecessor.
Thumbnail photo via Red Bull content pool
