As day one of the four day pre-season test began at the Circuito de Jerez, a few of the teams lower down the grid wheeled out their 2013 cars for smaller and less glamorous car launches. Marussia and Caterham were two teams that showed off their 2013 challengers in front of the garages this morning, before setting out for the first testing session of the year.
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Jenson Button struggled with a fuel pick-up problem early on in the test, but went on to post the fastest time of the day
When the session ended, Mclaren driver Jenson Button was fastest, despite struggling with a fuel pick-up problem and missing a significant part of the test. Mark Webber, whose team mate Sebastian Vettel begins testing on Thursday, had the second quickest time. The Red Bull car was reliable all day, which bodes well for the team. However, the same cannot be said of Mercedes; their car completed just 14 laps before catching fire, which the team attributed to an electrical fault.
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Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes W04 caught fire at todays pre-season test in Jerez
I was impressed with Paul Di Resta’s performance on track today; he posted the fourth best time of the session, and the Force India car looked like it had much more speed to give.
Teams can only put one driver on the grid per day, so it will be interesting to see what the performance of the Mercedes car will be like when new driver Lewis Hamilton is sitting in the driving seat.
The Williams team was running their 2012 car today, so they are clearly running behind schedule on the 2013 car; their new driver, Valtteri Bottas, is driving on Thursday, so although we can’t predict their pace for next year very well, we can see if Bottas will be able to match the pace of the quick but unpredictable Pastor Maldonado. It’s bulding up to be a very interesting test.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
