Barcelona Testing Day 1 review: Lotus on top as McLaren, Mercedes hit trouble

After an eventful Jerez testing going much in favour of Mercedes and Ferrari, Formula One is back for Barcelona Testing this time again for the four day testing . Numerous questions need to be answered this time, as all nine teams (including Force India) will try to get as many laps as possible in the next four days.

Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus E23 Hybrid running with a Mercedes Power Unit, topped the time charts today completing 69 laps followed by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen who was second in the time charts completing 73 laps today, continuing where he and Ferrari left off in Jerez.

Mercedes had a relatively tough day with Lewis Hamilton deciding to end his run way too early owing to bad health managing only 11 laps for the day. He was soon replaced by Mercedes reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein after he first drove 32 laps for Force India in their VJM07. He completed 48 laps today in the Mercedes but was 9th in the time  charts and his best lap was nearly a second down to what he did for Force India.

Adding to further woes for the team, Nico Rosberg looks doubtful for day two following a neck injury which prevented him from running today in place of Hamilton.

McLaren much like their troubled first test in Jerez, faced further issues today. They did have a promising start today completing 21 laps and managing to stay at the top of the time charts. Later they had a faulty seal on its MGU-K which meant that the entire power unit had to be changed, forcing them to stay in the garage after that.

Williams had a particularly interesting driver for the day-Susie Wolff, one of the few female Formula One drivers in the paddock right now. She completed a good 83 laps in the Williams and had a strong run today, though 10th in the time charts. She also was involved in a collision with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr at Turn 5 which caused a red flag.

Both the teams were very quick in their working and were able to fix the broken cars quickly to allow a run later. Nasr finished with 78 laps and fifth on the time charts. He also caused a second red flag of the day, just five minutes before the end of the session when his car stopped at Turn 9.

The morning wasn’t well for Red Bull, they were at the bottom of the time charts for a larger part of the time. Just when it seemed another troubled day for Red Bull, they jumped right back up after the Australian Daniel Ricciardo completed 58 laps and was one of the most active drivers after lunch. He finished third in the time charts.

Sergio Perez was fourth, driving the 2014 Force India  taking the wheel from Paschal Wehrlein completing 39 laps.

Rookie Max Verstappen in the Torro Rosso managed the highest laps in the lot-93 and finished with a time of 1:27.900 which put him sixth on the time charts.

It was an eventful day in Barcelona. Tomorrow will be even better and might be even more eventful. Whatever be the story, we at ES will have you covered.