How Ferrari made a Mercedes-style start in testing
Ferrari stole a march on the first day of pre-season F1 testing, which Sebastian Vettel described as "very close to perfection". The team shouldn't get carried away, but its form was nevertheless impressive on a day all nine squads that ran looked good
We've got used to Mercedes performing strongly out of the box at the start of pre-season testing, reeling off lap after lap in a brand new car. Mercedes did that again this year, but it was outdone by arch-rival Ferrari in terms of laps completed on day one, with Sebastian Vettel topping the timesheets for good measure.
Ferrari managed 169 laps, which equates to two-and-a-half race distances at Barcelona. That is very impressive. Vettel's best lap of 1m18.161s put him almost half-a-second clear of the rest and, even though headline times mean very little at this stage of the game, the fact he couldn't contain his grin after the session confirms this was a great start for Ferrari - "very close to perfection", as he put it.
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