LEWIS ENJOYS GOLDEN START
... but day turns sour for Alonso
WHILE Lewis Hamilton appeared to be the driver holding Willy Wonka’s golden ticket in his gloved hand, old rival Fernando Alonso looked like he had been sucking on lemons.
Not much has changed there, then. The first day of Formula One’s pre-season testing at the dawn of the post-Bernie Ecclestone era saw Hamilton’s Mercedes team lead the field in terms of times set and, more importantly at this stage, laps completed.
Ferrari were close, Sebastian Vettel finishing one tenth of a second behind Britain’s Hamilton. But a warning: the
Scuderia have been fast in previous tests, only for early data to later prove illusory.
Mercedes banged out 152 laps, 79 through new boy Valtteri Bottas in the morning and then 73 when Hamilton replaced the Finn at the wheel, while Vettel notched 127 laps.
Meanwhile, Alonso was gravely under-employed by McLaren.
His solitary lap before lunch, due to a problem with the oil system of his Honda engine, sparked calls between Barcelona and Japan. Alonso was not happy, admitted racing director Eric Boullier. Little surprise there. It was last year all over again. And the year before that — a slow start to McLarenHonda’s testing with minimal laps clocked up.
Tension between the team’s two wings was not in the script when their striking orange car was unveiled with pomp in Woking last week, but some metaphorical finger-pointing inevitably broke out yesterday.
Alonso returned to the cockpit but, to the disappointment of his countrymen in the stands under a blue sky, his engine gave up almost immediately. The Spaniard returned to the garage, before going out again. He got to 29 laps in the end, nursing his car along with conservative engine settings.
He looked angry afterwards, but employed diplomatic language. ‘It is not the perfect start to the week,’ he said. ‘After the difficulties of the last two years it is easy and fair to maximise today’s problems but from a team perspective we have to concentrate and recover.’
Williams were the third team to register a century of laps. Encouraging. At Red Bull, meanwhile, team principal Christian Horner hardly let out a ‘eureka!’ as an engine sensor problem and then a battery change delayed their schedule, though Daniel Ricciardo managed to put in a hefty quota of laps as the day closed.
The new cars looked big and powerful, and got good reviews from the drivers.
‘It is a beast,’ said Hamilton. ‘It is a much more beefed-up version of cars from the last few seasons. The wider body and wider wheels are all fantastic.
‘It has been a good day for the team. We have gained lots of information. This is day one. Today was about ticking off the check points and getting reliability. In days to come we will start to try to improve the car.’