Toto Wolff and Mercedes have taken a conservative approach to day 1 of testing. Ferrari have gone all out and have put in a lot of laps, and at a brilliant pace too.
Vettel did 169 laps and achieved his ‘best’ timing of 1 min 18.161s.
Ferrari were putting on a show and sending some shockwaves across the paddock, but teams wouldn’t be reading too much into it, as it is only testing.
Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton put in 69 and 81 laps respectively, clocking times of 1m20.127s and 1m20.135s.
Ferrari and Sauber have introduced new front wings for this season, keeping in mind the new aero regulations.
Now, Toto Wolff has gone ahead and actually re-triggered that old ‘interesting tactics’ statement that he had made about Ferrari’s car last season.
After Ferrari and Sauber’s impressive performance on day 1 of testing in Barcelona today, the Mercedes boss had something rather ‘interesting’ to say about Ferrari and Sauber’s new front wing.
“The front wings on the Ferrari and Sauber are interesting.” Toto Wolff said as quoted by AutoBild.
Mercedes are known for sandbagging, especially during testing and hence one shouldn’t read too much into the timings set by Mercedes drivers.
They have always been more keen on keeping it a little ‘subtle’ and not start the ‘hype train’ during testing.
