Preseason testing paints a picture for the 2016 F1 season

On the opening day of Barcelona‘s second test, Mercedes ran the soft tyres for the first time this year with Rosberg clocking a 1m23.022s just before lunch, finishing 0.207 seconds clear of Valtteri Bottas in the Williams, whose time was set on the ultra-softs. “To be able to push some more so we got down to some lap times and it was a good feeling”. “It’s not such a major change so it’s good that we’re thinking about it and I think it’s important to bring them in as soon as possible”.

Double defending champion Hamilton made a stuttering start as his Mercedes stopped in the pitlane on his way out, and once he got onto the track he was unable to find a similar pace to Rosberg as he ended the day with the sixth fastest time after 89 laps.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso was third fastest, 1.7 seconds slower than Rosberg in a turn-up for the team after a nightmare 2015 season, while Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was fourth in 1:24.836. “I think they will just see where everyone else is at”.

“Where we are now it looks like it’s going to be quite tricky for anyone to challenge them at the beginning of the season”, said Bottas, who logged 123 laps for Williams. “We have had some days where we would have liked to run a bit more but that is what the test is for”.

Brazilian Felipe Nasr debuted the Sauber C35, with the Swiss team the last to unveil their new auto for the new season.

However, the Finn suffered a gearbox problem in another worrying sign for Ferrari that reliability could be a weak spot this season. If we compare ’16 to ’15, and ’15 to ’14, considering the regulations are stable, we’ve optimised around those regulations and the cars are more reliable, everybody is doing more laps.

Of that trio it was Sainz who completed the most with 166, although he was also the slowest of all three, ending the day seventh overall, fractions behind Ricciardo.

“I don’t really have an explanation of why we’re experiencing these problems now”.

While a number of teams, including Ferrari and Red Bull, have already tried out Pirelli’s new ultrasoft tyre, Mercedes does not wish to waste any laps running on either that or the supersoft. Although neither Esteban Gutierrez nor Romain Grosjean found their way into the top ten, Haas proved they could compete at the F1 level and will slowly become a threat in the coming years.