Formula 1’s shakedown week began on a crisp but chilly day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Mercedes’ W17 emerging from the garages first in the hands of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, followed in short order by Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.
Both Bortoleto and Colapinto would later be delayed with technical issues but the closed-door policy of what is billed as a shakedown rather than a test militated against immediate discovery of what those issues might be.
Of the remaining teams, Liam Lawson was in action for Racing Bulls, Isack Hadjar for Red Bull, Valtteri Bottas for Cadillac and Esteban Ocon for Haas. By midday – when a red flag reportedly triggered by Lawson halting on track brought proceedings to a temporary halt – Ocon had topped the charts in terms of lap count, notching up 67.
During the morning some enterprising YouTubers managed to gain access to the timing system and shared the results – or at least purported to. The reported lap times were of course unofficial – but more significantly, even if accurate they would have been unrepresentative given the relative immaturity of the new technical package, and the fact that teams will have been running different programmes. We are some way off anyone embarking on proper push laps.
In any case, the unofficial timings were (rather disobligingly) cut off at source so the events of the afternoon remain shrouded in mystery. The circuit’s security also grew increasingly heavy-handed as the day wore on, telling anyone who came within several hundred metres of the circuit boundary to move on.
The fastest lap of the day according to leaked and unofficial timing was Hadjar with a 1m18.159s – but, again, on a day devoted to validating new systems this was not at all representative. George Russell, who took over from Antonelli in the afternoon, was 0.537s off Hadjar; the overall spread from fastest to slowest (Sergio Perez, who completed just 11 laps in the Cadillac during the afternoon) was 7.815s.
Esteban Ocon, Haas
Photo by: Formula 1
F1 TV was present to capture interviews with drivers and team personnel, and teams were permitted to publish a limited number of social media posts. But as negative sentiment built up online regarding access, and the security in particular, some sensitivities regarding the messaging seemed to develop and the taps were turned off, aside from the release of a brief video of the Audi leaving the pitlane.
The teams who took to the track today are building their run plans for the rest of the week around the weather forecast. McLaren, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Williams were absent.
McLaren and Ferrari had already confirmed they would not run before Tuesday, and Williams has said it will not be present in Barcelona at all. Teams can run on three of the five days but Aston Martin has confessed it will miss at least one, and will not be ready until Thursday at the earliest.
Of more import than lap times was the number of laps completed, and in that regard Haas can be most satisfied: according to those unofficial timings, Ocon clocked up 154 laps. Next up was Mercedes: Russell completed 93 laps, Antonelli 56 to provide a total of 149 laps.
Colapinto managed 60 laps despite his long stay in the garage, while Lawson did 88. At the other end of the scale the challenge facing the new teams – although Audi only warrants that description in terms of its engine – was rendered starkly. Perez’s 11 laps brought Cadillac to a total of 44 for the day, while Bortoleto signed off on just 27. But Audi confirmed it had identified the issue and is set to have it fixed for the remainder of the week.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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