JEREZ, Spain: Lewis Hamilton crashed his Mercedes, world champion Sebastian Vettel failed to complete a timed lap and McLaren’s car stayed in the garage as Formula One’s new turbo era endured a difficult, and strangely quiet, birth yesterday.
Twin black streaks of scorched tyre rubber marked the asphalt at the end of the Jerez pit straight where Hamilton locked up and careered into the tyre wall after a front wing failure on the first day of pre-season testing.
The 2008 champion was unhurt in the crash, on his 18th lap after being first out of the pit lane following the unveiling of his sleek silver F1 W05 car, but it ended his team’s track activities for the day.
“Apart from the ending, it’s been quite a positive day,” said Hamilton, who said it was way too early to give any assessment of the car.
“Always when you crash it’s big, but it’s OK. I was able to walk away, no problems,” he told reporters.
Vettel’s work at the wheel had not even started at that point, Red Bull’s quadruple champion kicking his heels while the team fixed setup problems which had emerged overnight with their new RB10.
The German eventually emerged, after a brief squall of rain, for one installation lap.
Fans who had paid for tickets got scant value for money, with only 93 laps completed by eight of the 10 teams present on a cold day in southern Spain.
Kimi Raikkonen, returning to Ferrari after winning the championship with them in 2007, accounted for 31 laps after bringing out the first red flag of the day when he stopped on track early on.
That compared to a total of 657 laps run on the opening day of testing last year and 718 in 2012.
“We want to do more laps but it’s pretty normal with such a big change,” the Finn told reporters. “It will take a little time before we can run 100 percent the whole time and be confident we don’t have any issues.”
Formula One has ditched the ear-splitting 2.4 litre V8 engines for a new turbocharged 1.6 litre V6 with complex energy recovery systems and more emphasis on fuel economy.
Reliability is a major concern and times were therefore of no relevance as teams focused on troubleshooting rather than performance.
Hamilton had also crashed last year in Jerez in his first test for Mercedes after moving from McLaren, whose troubles continued after a 2013 season to forget.
The Woking team, who had hoped to have Jenson Button on track, said they had been hit by electrical issues that led to the dismantling, inspection and re-installing of several major components.
Tail-enders Marussia and Caterham also hit unexpected turbulence.
Marussia’s car was still on its way to Jerez after being delayed at the factory on Monday by what team principal John Booth called a “small but frustrating teething problem”.
Malaysian-owned Caterham delayed their car presentation due, according to their Twitter feed, to “some last minute issues bolting it together” but finally made it out on track.
With a thin new moon still visible over the circuit, Hamilton had got the new era rolling shortly after 0900 local (0800 GMT) for an installation lap before silence resumed.
Mercedes, who carried out a private 40km shakedown at Silverstone with Germany’s Nico Rosberg on Friday, presented the car in the pitlane shortly after dawn with champions Red Bull taking the wraps off their RB 10 challenger minutes later.
Reuters
JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA, Spain: Lewis Hamilton said he was feeling positive ahead of the new Formula One season despite having his first day of testing in Jerez ended early by a minor crash.
The British driver hit a tyre barrier after his new Mercedes W05 came off the track at turn one, with the team blaming a front wing failure.
“Any crash is going to have a bump, but I don’t have any (bruises) at the minute,” said the Brit.
“I might do tomorrow, but I was able to walk away ok.
“It all happened too quickly. The engineers have been asking a lot of questions about it. I just got to the end of the straight and when I braked the car was a little bit higher than usual and didn’t stop.”
Hamilton was the first man out on the track on a extremely quiet opening day as most teams struggled to get their newly modelled cars up and running.
The 2008 world champion was also fastest when he stopped running, well over a second quicker than Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in second. And he is happy to have any faults ironed out now rather than when the action gets underway for real in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix on March 16.
“For me it’s an incredibly positive start to be the first car out on track and to have completed the most laps by the time we finished,” added Hamilton.
“Other teams have been going out for single-lap runs, starting a few hours after we had first hit the track, so to have started running through our test programme was very encouraging. “It’s unfortunate to end the day early when everyone has worked so hard and we had looked like easily completing the most mileage of anyone here today, but we’ll make that track time back and it’s better to have these things happen now than in Melbourne.”
Mercedes are one of only two teams not to have made any driver changes from last season and Hamilton admitted to feeling much more comfortable in his surroundings in his second year with the German team.
“It has been a little bit easier this year. I am more bedded in with the team, not coming to the factory not knowing what the departments are or what each individual is doing.
“I’ve had a lot more input into this year’s car too, so fingers crossed that will quickly show through the race weekends.” After a second place finish behind the dominant Red Bull in the constructors’ championship last season, many are tipping Mercedes as early season favourites to go even better this year.
However, despite appearing to be ahead of their rivals in the implementation of a series of new technical regulations, executive director Toto Wolff insisted it was far too early to make judgements as to how the season will develop.
“You can’t take anything from the first day of testing in Jerez. We are very motivated and we wanted to be the first team out this morning.
“The car was ok but it is much too early to judge. We have to go into the first couple of weekends and see how it all pans out.”
AFP
