All the 20 F1 drivers for the 2020 season lined-up ahead of testing (Getty)
F1 is back and the 2020 pre-season testing got underway at Barcelona on 19 February with some impressive timings and results.
The day started off with Haas and Alfa Romeo showing off their 2020 challengers. There was good news for Williams too as they actually had a car ready for testing and George Russell impressed in his outing.
Only 15 drivers took part in testing with some splitting the sessions between their stars. Mercedes, Racing Point, Alfa Romeo, Williams and Renault took out two cars on this day.
It was Mercedes that ended the day with the two best times. Lewis Hamilton left off from his previous campaign and topped the sheets with 94 laps under his belt.
The Brit was followed by Valtteri Bottas who was just three-tenths behind his teammates.
Sergio Perez was impressive as he finished third and was just fourth-tenths behind the leading Mercedes car.
There were five drivers that clocked up more than 100 laps on the first day of testing. Charles Leclerc, who replaced the sick Sebastian Vettel on this day, did 131 laps but finished 11th on the day.
Kevin Magnussen was 14th with 104 laps under his belt while Daniil Kvyat impressed with the new AlphaTauri.
Carlos Sainz of McLaren finished the day with the sixth-best time and 161 laps too but the winner of this run was Max Verstappen.
The Dutch racer was behind Perez, in fourth, and had racked up 168 laps. Verstappen didn’t have it all his way as he pushed the RB16 to its limits and spun twice on the track.
There were a couple of fresh faces that were seen on the track too with Nicholas Latifi running in his Williams and Esteban Ocon making his debut for Renault after sitting the last season out.
Apart from the Mercedes domination, it was great seeing Renault get their house back in order.
Daniel Ricciardo and Ocon finished seventh and eighth, respectively, but were almost a second behind the time set by Hamilton.
Russell’s Williams finished an impressive ninth on the first day of pre-season testing as he beat Lance Stroll and Leclerc.
There still is a lot to learn about the cars in the coming days and it will be interesting to see how things go for the teams.
The other racers should come out on track to get a taste of the new cars with Alex Albon, Lando Norris and Vettel yet to take up any laps.
The F1 pre-season testing stream is available on F1 TV and the Formula One website while updates are consistently shared on their social media handles.
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