F1 2018: Pre-season testing commences in Spain as teams launch new cars

Pre-season testing for the 2018 FIA Formula 1 World Championship has commenced at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Force India unveiling its new car – the VJM11 – for the F1 season that was put into the gravel after their test driver, Nikita Mazepin, spun. Mazepin's best time was the second slowest out of the 13 drivers who drove today, and his tally of 22 laps was all that Force India-Mercedes could manage for the day.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull Racing managed to complete the most number of laps on the opening day of the pre-season testing. The Australian finished with a tally of 105 laps on the first of eight days of testing around the 16-turn, 4.655km circuit on the outskirts of Barcelona in Spain.

He also set the fastest time of all with a lap of 1min. 20.179 sec, although testing times are largely immaterial in pre-season testing, given that teams are usually running on different testing programs.

However, title favourites Mercedes AMG F1 and Ferrari were not too far behind as Valtteri Bottas managed 58 laps, and a best lap just 0.170 seconds slower than Ricciardo's time, while Kimi Raikkonen completed 80 laps with a best lap just over a tenth of a second slower.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton also turned in laps today, completing 25 laps on a testing program that had to be changed due to rain showers that gave teams a chance to try out Pirelli's wet weather tyres.

Renault F1 seemed promising today as Nico Hulkenberg completed 73 laps with a best effort just under four tenths of a second slower than Ricciardo's time. Then teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. took over driving the R.S. 18 to put in a further 26 laps.

Fernando Alonso and McLaren's testing efforts hit an early snag as an apparent sub axle failure on the right-rear of the Renault powered (having parted ways with Honda) MCL33 resulted in the former double world champion spinning off into the gravel in the opening minutes of the day.

His stricken car was taken back to the pits and after a lengthy delay, he was able to put in 51 laps along with the fifth fastest time of 1:21.339, just under 1.2 seconds off Ricciardo's best effort. Not a bad day's work, considering how it started and far improved pre-season running after enduring nightmarish reliability issues on account of Honda's troubled power unit from 2015 till 2017.

The Honda power unit is now to be found in the engine bay of Toro Rosso's STR13, and Brendon Hartley completed 93 laps today with a best time of 1:22.371.

However, the teams are only expected to try out low fuel qualifying simulations tomorrow in an effort to see how much speed their machines have in store as well as how Pirelli's new Hypersoft tyre compound will put up with hard driving around a racetrack.