F1 preseason starts with teams targeting Mercedes again

World champions Mercedes have unveiled the vehicle they hope will fire them to a hat-trick of consecutive Formula One titles.

With the technical landscape more or less unchanged for the upcoming season, Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg will line up at Melbourne for the opening race on March 20.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton was by far the busiest driver on the grid, completing 156 laps – nearly double the amount of any competitor – in his Mercedes, which looks similar to last season’s title-winning vehicle.

McLaren’s Jenson Button revived optimism at his Honda-powered team with 84 largely trouble-free laps in a refreshing change from a dismal 2015 when the former champions finished ninth out of 10. “I’ve never had a Day One practice like today”.

Vettel’s leading time of 1m24.939s at Barcelona‘s Catalunya circuit was posted late in the morning session on a set of medium-compound Pirelli tyres.

“Until l get to his level l won’t have bored them as much as he had”. “We are fairly happy with the vehicle and the way it felt, we did some laps, ideally we wanted to do some more but when everything is new and you have issues to look into, you take a bit more caution, you stop and unfortunately these things take time“.

However, Vettel believes that Monday’s timesheets provide a further indication that Ferrari have made significant inroads into the advantage that Mercedes have enjoyed over the past two seasons.

Carlos Sainz was seventh for Toro Rosso ahead of Marcus Ericsson who was behind the wheel of a modified version of last year’s Sauber. Staunton, VA Used Cars At our Staunton, VA dealership, we will help you get approved for a used vehicle loan in minutes. “Many skilled people put in a lot of dedicated hours, and we are judged relative to the front-running vehicle”. It feels like last year’s auto.

“To not have any problems on the first day is a great sign of how united and focused everyone on this team is.

It is an evolution of last year’s auto and feels very much the same which is a good thing and means we have a good foundation to work from”. “It’s better than being last but it’s not really important”.

The vehicle ran reliably, completing about 80 laps, second best among the new cars after Mercedes.

“We see them as our main threat coming out of where all the teams were past year”, he said.

Even at this stage, it seems relatively safe to say that it would be a surprise if any other team regularly challenged the top two.

“There are a lot of positives we can build on, and a strong platform to take forward”.