Norris leads Ferraris on first day of Barcelona F1 test

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36

Lando Norris set the fastest time on the first day of pre-season testing for McLaren after Charles Leclerc led after the first part of the day at Ferrari while Red Bull, with their new RB18, completed the picture of the new generation of F1 cars for 2022.

Norris was the only McLaren MCL36 to drive under 1:20, half an hour before the end of the day, setting a time 1:19.568 on a C4 Pirelli tyre, driving 103 laps in a car he first tested yesterday on the same track during shakedown.

Leclerc spent most of the morning part of the first day at the top and finished the fastest with a time of 1: 20.165 on C3 tyres which at the end of the day was enough for him to finish second ahead of team mate Sainz.

The Spaniard drove 73 laps in the afternoon and finished third fastest (C3), which with Leclerc’s 80 laps, Ferrari holds the first place among the teams in the number of laps driven on the first day (153), ahead of Red Bull (147).

Russell set the fourth fastest time for Mercedes in the morning before F1 W13 was taken over by Hamilton in the afternoon as he finished fifth with 27 laps less than his new teammate due to some front suspension work.

2022 McLaren MCL36 Norris Barcelona test Day 1 side shot hard C1 Pirelli Photo McLaren

Vettel was faster than two Aston Martin drivers in sixth place ahead of Tsunoda in AlphaTauri who drove 121 laps, and Alonso was even more successful with 127 laps for Alpine in eighth place.

Verstappen drove the most laps of all drivers (147) on the way to the ninth fastest time in the new Red Bull RB18, which was shown to the public for the first time today and has a rebranded Red Bull RBPTH001 (Red Bull Powertrains Hybrid) power unit due to Honda’s withdrawal from Formula 1.

Bottas had problems with the reliability of the new Alfa C42 in the afternoon, which kept him in the garage for a long time and limited him to only 23 laps, and the Finn finished tenth fastest ahead of F1 returnee Albon in Williams.

Schumacher also drove just 23 laps in Haas VF-22 and finished 12th ahead of Stroll, Latifi and Mazepin. The last was Kubica, who had even more problems than Bottas and drove only nine laps, which puts Alfa in last place in the number of laps (32) ahead of Haas (43), while everyone else drove more than 100 laps.

The test continues tomorrow at 9 a.m local time (GMT+1).

DAY 1 RESULTS

1	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:19.568	C4	103
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:20.165	C3	80
3	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1:20.416	C3	73
4	George Russell	Mercedes	1:20.784	C3	77
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:20.929	C3	50
6	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	1:21.276	C3	52
7	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	1:21.638	C3	121
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	1:21.746	C3	127
9	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:22.246	C2	147
10	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	1:22.572	C3	23
11	Alex Albon	Williams	1:22.760	C3	66
12	Mick Schumacher	Haas	1:22.926	C3	23
13	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	1:23.327	C3	67
14	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1:23.379	C3	66
15	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	1:24.505	C2	20
16	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo	1:25.909	C3	9