Mercedes dominates opening practice in Barcelona

It didn't take long for Aldo Costa to make the Mercedes cars faster than the Ferraris. Whereas the Ferraris were faster at this track in preseason testing, Mercedes brought significant Costa upgrades to Barcelona for the Spanish GP and Mercedes blew the Ferraris out of the water in opening practice.

Lewis Hamilton beat his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas by just 0.029s to lead FP1. More importantly they were a second faster than the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.

The Red Bull row (row 3) was led by Max Verstappen over Daniel Ricciardo.

The biggest surprise were the Haas Ferrari occupying the 4th row, but Magnussen – running the team’s only current allocation of new parts – went off the road late in the session after an apparent gearbox issue.

Sergey Sirotkin, standing in for Jolyon Palmer at Renault, and home favourite Fernando Alonso also hit technical trouble, the latter just three corners into his first lap of the day when his Honda-powered McLaren spun to a smoky halt.

The only other Spaniard in the field, Carlos Sainz Jr., rounded out the top ten in his Toro Rosso, finishing just behind Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault.

Results

POS NO DRIVER CAR TIME GAP LAPS ROW
1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:21.521 +0.000s 28 Mercedes Row
2 77 Valtteri Bottas MERCEDES 1:21.550 +0.029s 30 Mercedes Row
3 7 Kimi Raikkonen FERRARI 1:22.456 +0.935s 24 Ferrari Row
4 5 Sebastian Vettel FERRARI 1:22.600 +1.079s 23 Ferrari Row
5 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING 1:22.706 +1.185s 22 Red Bull Row
6 3 Daniel Ricciardo RED BULL RACING 1:23.084 +1.563s 17 Red Bull Row
7 20 Kevin Magnussen HAAS FERRARI 1:23.670 +2.149s 22 Haas Row
8 8 Romain Grosjean HAAS FERRARI 1:23.758 +2.237s 23 Haas Row
9 27 Nico Hulkenberg RENAULT 1:23.993 +2.472s 24
10 55 Carlos Sainz TORO ROSSO 1:24.004 +2.483s 21
11 11 Sergio Perez FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 1:24.188 +2.667s 23 Force India Row
12 31 Esteban Ocon FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 1:24.324 +2.803s 22 Force India Row
13 2 Stoffel Vandoorne MCLAREN HONDA 1:24.400 +2.879s 24
14 19 Felipe Massa WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:24.618 +3.097s 34
15 26 Daniil Kvyat TORO ROSSO 1:24.642 +3.121s 18
16 9 Marcus Ericsson SAUBER FERRARI 1:24.966 +3.445s 23 Sauber Row
17 94 Pascal Wehrlein SAUBER FERRARI 1:25.182 +3.661s 24 Sauber Row
18 18 Lance Stroll WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1:25.919 +4.398s 34
19 46 Sergey Sirotkin RENAULT 1:26.293 +4.772s 10
20 14 Fernando Alonso MCLAREN HONDA No Time No Time 1

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