DAY ONE OVERVIEW

Date Tuesday 6 March 2018 Driver Stoffel Vandoorne Location Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (4.655km/2.892 miles) Laps/km/miles 38/177km/110miles Best laptime 1:21.946

PROGRAMME

An interrupted day to kick off the second week of pre-season testing in Barcelona.

The team suffered some niggling issues that meant running was relatively stop-start throughout the day. After an initial install lap as the track went green at 09:00am, Stoffel reported a loss of electrical power to the car and coasted back into the pits.

The same issue affected his next run, when after another three laps all electrical power to the car shut down, and Stoffel stopped out on track. The team investigated the issue and elected to swap the battery, after which Stoffel returned to the track just before lunch.

Despite a productive early-afternoon stint out on track, Stoffel’s run was cut short with a suspected hydraulic leak just before 16:00hrs. Due to the location of the leak, the investigation and fix were naturally time-consuming, and meant the day’s running concluded early.

Nevertheless, Stoffel completed 38 laps and still managed to gather a lot of useful data in preparation for tomorrow’s running.

STOFFEL VANDOORNE, McLaren Driver

“Today was challenging because of the issues we had which interrupted our running for today. We had a few stoppages on track, and we’ve been working through each one to make sure we’re fully prepared for tomorrow.

“The kinds of issue we’ve had weren’t particularly serious, but have taken a relatively long time to fix, so we weren’t able to run as much as we planned. The conditions this afternoon were quite tricky due to the wind, so the running we did wasn’t so representative.

“We’re hopeful the issues have been fixed and we can have a more productive day tomorrow.”

ERIC BOULLIER, Racing Director

“Today wasn’t the day we had hoped for on track, but, despite this, we aren’t overly concerned about the issues that we’ve faced today.

“It’s obviously not the productive day we had planned, but the problems – a battery issue and a hydraulic leak – are the types of niggles that we almost hope and expect to face during testing, in order to prepare us properly for the season ahead.

“We are here to test, and today is what sometimes happens in testing. It’s not ideal, and we would have liked more track time, but we’re working on it, we’re learning from it, and we’ll return to the track tomorrow armed with more information.”

TODAY'S OFFICIAL TESTING TIMES

1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:20.396s 171 laps 2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:20.596s 85 laps 3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:20.649s 130 laps 4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:20.808s 91 laps 5 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 1:20.973s 54 laps 6 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:21.298s 96 laps 7 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:21.432s 48 laps 8 Carlos Sainz Renault 1:21.455s 91 laps 9 Sergey Sirotkin Williams 1:21.588s 42 laps 10 Sergio Perez Force India 1:21.643s 93 laps 11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:21.706s 120 laps 12 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:21.946s 38 laps 13 Lance Stroll Williams 1:22.937s 86 laps

WHAT'S NEXT?

Fernando returns to the cockpit tomorrow for his first stint of the final week of pre-season testing.

TEST DATES

Four days (Tuesday 6 March – Friday 9 March).



