The big news in Formula 1 today was the start of preseason testing. Before testing though Manor, Toro Rosso, Force India, and Red Bull all revealed their 2016 cars to the public.
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| Manor MRT05 |
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| Toro Rosso STR11 |
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| Force India VJM09 |
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| Red Bull RB12 |
In testing today Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time followed by Lewis Hamilton in 2nd. As always with testing though it is difficult to know which team is actually in the best shape as they all run different fuel loads and tire compounds along with different settings. What we can learn though is the Mercedes looks to be quite reliable as Hamilton recorded 156 laps in the day which is the equivalent of over two race distances. Most teams ran between 80 and 90 laps on the day which is over one race distance which shows that most teams are looking in good shape as far as reliability is concerned. One of these teams is McLaren which recorded more laps today than they did in the entire first four days of testing last year. However, the car still looks to be down on straight line speed.
The two teams that ran in to problems though were Haas and Renault. The front wing of the Haas car fell off as it was on the main straight but the team says it understands the problem. As for Renault they claim they had teething problems which had a lot to do with software.
Overall I think this seems to be a successful day for most teams as reliability was not really an issue. The one team that I was impressed with most today was Haas despite its front wing problems. I was expecting that since they are a new team they would have even more problems getting the car up and running but that was their only issue. Their fastest time of the day was also only 3.5s. off the leading Ferrari of Vettel which I also think was good for the first day.
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