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Where Mercedes edged a bulletproof start to testing

Mercedes topped the charts on the opening day of Formula 1 testing, but it's Lewis Hamilton's ultra-consistent runs on C2 and C3 tyres relative to his rivals that could tell a bigger story than the headline times

Alex Kalinauckas Feb 19, 2020, 2:35 PM

Well, Mercedes certainly won the first day of Formula 1 2020.

Beyond that statement come all the usual testing caveats: it's the first day, fuel and ballast loads are unknown, the track will rubber in. All the fence-sitting hits, basically.

The headline takeaways are that Mercedes topped the morning running with Valtteri Bottas on a 1m17.313s, and then Lewis Hamilton marched on in the afternoon after taking over the W11 to bring the benchmark down to a 1m16.976s. In total, the duo completed the most laps on 173.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.