Barcelona F1 test day one
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First two minutes down, but no cars have emerged back out on track yet. Presumably the drivers are still in the middle of their post-lunch naps.
Make that five minutes, track's still silent, although there were some fire-up-like sounds coming seemingly from the vicinity of the Mercedes garage.
And indeed, Lewis Hamilton heads out in the Mercedes on C3s, kicking off his 2020 season (sort of) with a practice start.
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A reminder that apart from Hamilton taking over from Bottas, there are midday driver changes at Racing Point (Stroll in for Perez), Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi in for Kubica), Renault (Ricciardo in for Ocon) and Williams (Latifi in for Russell).
Hamilton's first lap is a 1m21.369s, as he is joined by Verstappen on track.
Verstappen has done a practice pitstop by the sound of it, whereas Hamilton has continued on, improving to a 1m18.853s. He's still 11th and last for now but surely won't be for very long.
Smaller improvement from Hamilton this time by, just by two tenths, and therefore he stays last. His next lap is a mid-1m20s.
Crash
There's been a spin for Verstappen heading into the chicane in the final sector, as he lost the car on the outside kerb on entry. No visible damage, but the tyres are presumably cooked, and he thus comes back into the pits.
With Verstappen's car now on the stands, it is now Leclerc who has joined Hamilton out on track.
Leclerc comes through the pits to do a practice start on pit exit. He's now joined on track by Williams rookie Nicholas Latifi.
Giovinazzi is now out turning his first laps in the Alfa Romeo C39. No timed laps from Latifi yet, as he comes back into the pits with flow-viz all over the rear of the new Williams.
Giovinazzi's first timed lap is a 1m22.358s on C3s.
Giovinazzi's second and third flyers are quicker, as he improves to a 1m20.096s but stays a distant 12th for now.
Leclerc's almost certainly doing some fairly heavy-fuel running now as he's been in the 1m21s range for several consecutive laps.
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With 40 minutes of the afternoon session gone, the timesheets are largely unchanged.
1 Bottas 1m17.313s
2 Perez 1m17.375s
3 Verstappen 1m17.787s
4 Sainz 1m18.001s
5 Ocon 1m18.004s
6 Russell 1m18.168s
7 Leclerc 1m18.289s
8 Kubica 1m18.386s
9 Magnussen 1m18.466s
10 Kvyat 1m18.484s
11 Hamilton 1m18.687s
12 Giovinazzi 1m20.096s
1 Bottas 1m17.313s
2 Perez 1m17.375s
3 Verstappen 1m17.787s
4 Sainz 1m18.001s
5 Ocon 1m18.004s
6 Russell 1m18.168s
7 Leclerc 1m18.289s
8 Kubica 1m18.386s
9 Magnussen 1m18.466s
10 Kvyat 1m18.484s
11 Hamilton 1m18.687s
12 Giovinazzi 1m20.096s
Verstappen returns to the track post-spin, and his first lying lap is a solid low-1m18s on C2 tyres.
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Latifi's first timed effort allows the Williams debutant to leapfrog Giovinazzi, as he laps 2.581s off the pace.
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Latifi now posts a 1m19.258s on the C4s. He's a second off Russell as it stands, but it's a decent start by the looks of it.
Pushing to improve further, Latifi gets a big snap over the kerbs exiting the penultimate corner, but hangs on to the car.
Hamilton returns to the circuit on C3s, and his very first flying lap takes him to third place, just 0.369s slower than his morning pace-setter team-mate Bottas.
Hamilton's second flying lap is a couple of tenths slower than his first. Meanwhile, Kvyat has a Turn 15 moment that's virtually identical to Latifi's from a few minutes earlier.
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First laptime in from Lance Stroll, who's taken over for Perez for the afternoon. It's a 1m19.964s on C2s to take him to 13th place, a tenth up on Giovinazzi.
Kvyat improves on C2s, leapfrogging Leclerc and Kubica to take eighth place.
Stroll moves up another notch now, getting ahead of Latifi for 12th place.
Sainz is on an insanely consistent run, logging a boatload of times all within the 1m23s. Why so slow? He's on the C1 tyres, which are as hard as granite and just about as grippy.
Not a huge amount going on this afternoon, as the drivers stifle lunch-y burps and get a bit more mileage on the odometer. Max Verstappen has the most laps thus far, having done 111 tours of the circuit. Yikes.
After his seemingly boundless running on the C1 tyre, Sainz makes a pitstop for fresh rubber. It's a set of one of the hard tyres, we don't know which yet...
I'm sure we moaned about this last year, but wouldn't it be nice if the C1 and C5 tyres were just a little bit different? You can see the stripe - or lack thereof - when the cars are stationary, but when running? Good luck.
Magnussen is currently circulating in the 1m20s on a set of C3s, as Sainz is on unspecified hard tyres perambulating in the 1m22s. Meanwhile, Verstappen's gone out to do some bits and pieces on-track.
More action on the circuit now; Hamilton, Verstappen, Stroll, Latifi and Giovinazzi are all on the circuit. Hamilton's on a hot lap...
Stopwatch
And that's Hamilton to the top of the timing boards, clocking in a 1m17.293s on his C3 (medium) tyres - 0.02s faster than Bottas.
With Perez still third we'd say that the Mercedes still occupy the top three positions, but we might get into trouble...
Crash
Verstappen's had his second spin at the final chicane of the afternoon. No damage, just a chastened drive back into the pits.
Sainz logs his 100th lap of the day - that's the equivalent of one-and-a-third Spanish Grand Prix. Usually, just the one is too much to handle.
Daniel Ricciardo is now on track, pumping in some laps on a set of C3 tyres. His new purple lid is a rather lovely tribute to Kobe Bryant.
When looking at the rather fetching new Williams livery, one was put in mind of another - namely, Damon Hill's Arrows from 1997. Anyone else?
By: Geoff Creighton
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