However, this observation does have one caveat. The F1 teams organized this shakedown week on their own initiative. Behind closed doors, with a limited amount of media updates and also without official timekeeping. Officially no times were shared, but if you searched carefully you could find them online. Until the Formula 1 organization decided that this was not the intention and the live timing was closed around noon. What remains is an incomplete picture of this first day.
Verstappen not in action
In any case, one thing was clear: Max Verstappen did not take action on Monday. It was Red Bull newcomer Isack Hadjar who had the honor of driving the first test kilometers with the RB22. Ultimately, he drove 44 laps in the morning session and clocked a known fastest lap of 1.18.835. For comparison, Oscar Piastri’s pole time at the last Spanish Grand Prix was 1.11.546.
Behind Hadjar, Andrea Kimi Antonelli recorded the second fastest time on behalf of Mercedes in those first hours, 1.20.700. The Italian completed 56 laps before lunch. Third was Franco Colapinto (Alpine) with a time of 1.21.348, but only 28 laps. The latter may have been due to technical problems. The Argentinian caused a first red flag just after eleven o’clock by driving very slowly around the circuit. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) also raised red flags.
Franco Colapinto drives the Alpine A526 onto the circuit.
Photo by: Formula 1
Seven teams and nine drivers in action
So the first day of the shakedown started with seven F1 teams, but nine drivers were in action. In addition to the aforementioned Hadjar (Red Bull), Antonelli (Mercedes), Colapinto (Alpine), Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Bortoleto (Audi), these were George Russell (Mercedes), who took over the wheel from Antonelli in the afternoon, Esteban Ocon (Haas) and Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez for Cadillac.
Ferrari and McLaren will be in action later this week (teams are ‘only’ allowed to use three of the five days of testing), while Williams has indicated that it is experiencing delays and will miss this test completely. Aston Martin, meanwhile, plans to only run on Thursdays and Fridays.
We will not see this Williams livery in Barcelona this week.
Photo by: Williams
Haas collects data, Cadillac and Audi lag behind
Haas F1 could look back on a productive day. Although Ocon’s lap times were nothing to write home about, the Frenchman did complete a full Spanish Grand Prix (67 laps) before lunch and that will have been good for the small American team. At this stage it is often more important how many laps a car completes than how fast it goes. The more kilometers are driven, the more data can be collected and data means knowledge. Racing Bulls also did well in that area: although Lawson caused a red flag, he still managed 42 laps before lunch.
Less impressive was the performance of newcomers Cadillac and Audi. Bottas clocked the sixth fastest time and completed 33 laps, after which Pérez took over the American wheel in the afternoon. Bortoleto had to make do on behalf of Audi with the slowest time and 27 laps completed.
Shakedown F1 – Barcelona – Day 1
* Number of laps and times until lunch
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