Barcelona-EL1: Hamilton and Bottas take the lead

Both Mercedes W08, which appeared on the track with multiple aerodynamic developments, showed itself to be the most comfortable during the first Catalan runs this Friday morning.

Lewis Hamilton signed the best time at the end of this hour and a half, in 1’21”521, 29 thousandths ahead of his teammate Valtteri Bottas, after having passed the medium tires which succeeded the hard tires, seen at the start of the session.

Kimi Räikkönen is more than nine tenths behind with the first SF70H ahead Sebastian Vettel who did not have the best start in Catalonia, with a session disrupted by a probable gearbox problem.

The four-time world champion had to stop his SF70H after leaving the pit lane, but the German driver was able to return to the track less than 40' from the end of the runs, only to fall 1″079 behind Hamilton.

Both Red Bull de Max Verstappen, who was only able to really start his session a good half hour before the end of the morning, after having only completed installation laps during the first hour, and Daniel Ricciardo follow in the ranking.

Verstappen took advantage of his medium tires to immediately set a new best time of 1'22"706, 825 thousandths ahead of Lewis Hamilton's previous benchmark, before the Mercedes driver immediately increased the pace.

Both Haas de Kevin Magnussen et Romain Grosjean ranked 7th and 8th. The Dane, however, made a mistake in the final moments, after a wheel lockup at turn 4. The virtual safety car was deployed while the VF17 was evacuated, equipped with the new features brought by Kannapolis in Spain.

Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) and Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso) complete the top 10. Esteban Ocon (Force India) concludes this EL1 12th just behind his teammate Sergio Pérez and ahead of the first McLaren by Stoffel Vandoorne.

Session nevertheless still complicated in the McLaren clan since Fernando Alonso was forced to stop at the very start of the session, victim of an engine problem on his MCL32. The car of Woking, evacuated by a lifting machine, then released oil in large waves.

That's quite a lot of oil coming out of Fernando Alonso's McLaren

Wait for it ... #SpanishGP  # FP1 pic.twitter.com/DuZrXEPbQh

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 12, 2017

As indicated to Sky Sports, the Honda Power Unit should be changed for FP2. Felipe Massa, for his part, places first Williams in 14th place. Sergey Sirotkin, replacing Jolyon Palmer at Renault for these FP1, set the 19th fastest time on hard tires, but saw his second outing in the R.S.17 disrupted by a water leak.

The second driving session will begin at 14 p.m.

EL1 classification