Racing Point surprisingly fast
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New season – old picture: At the start of the first Formula 1 test drives this year, world champion Mercedes was the measure of things in the morning. In 1: 17.313 minutes, Valtteri Bottas with his Mercedes W11 was the fastest on the Circuit de Catalunya just outside of Barcelona. The Racing Point RP20 also had a strong premiere: Sergio Perez was just 0.062 seconds off Bottas with the new racer.
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Leclerc with the Ferrari SF1000 only mediocre
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In the Red Bull, Max Verstappen was third, 0.474 seconds behind the best in the morning, but with 90 laps on the 4.655-kilometer course, the Dutchman was by far the busiest pilot. For comparison: Bottas completed 79 laps in the Silver Arrow, Sergio Perez only 58 laps in the Racing Point.
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In seventh he was almost a tenth slower than George Russell in the Williams FW43. With 64 laps driven, Leclerc initially shared fourth place in this classification with McLaren man Carlos Sainz. In the time table, the Spaniard was also fourth, but almost 3 tenths ahead of Leclerc.
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All new cars stable and fast
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All in all, all the cars presented themselves surprisingly quickly and very steadfast on the first day of testing. Apart from Daniil Kvyat, who briefly stopped in the pit lane with his AlphaTauri AT01 and had to be pushed back into the garage, no team had any technical problems. Kvyat was able to continue testing after a short break. However, he only managed 54 laps and was also the last in the 10-driver time classification, 1.171 seconds behind.
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But with 1: 18.484, even Kvyat was only about 3 tenths slower than the best time of the previous year, Bottas undercut this by a strong 8 tenths.
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