Hamilton is the fastest racer of the morning

Mercedes racer Lewis Hamilton recorded the fastest time of the morning part of the first day of testing taking place in Barcelona this week. The winner of the race in Spain finished the three-hour morning training as the fastest with a time of 1: 44.291 on a wet track, and drove 27 laps.

The teams were greeted by rain at the Katalunya racetrack in the morning, which delayed the start of testing by one hour, and events on the track were also limited due to low temperatures, which hovered around 16 degrees Celsius. The afternoon portion of today’s testing will begin an hour earlier, and teams are hoping conditions will improve.

The second fastest time belonged to Williams racer Felipe Massa, and Red Bull reserve racer Sebastien Buemi was third. The fourth time was set by McLarn’s Jenson Button, who was better than Nic Hulkenberg in Force India, who took his only measured lap just towards the end. Sixth was Max Chilton, who took care of a short break, followed by Kamui Kobayashi and Giedo van der Garde.

Charles Pic returned to the wheel of a Formula One car for the first time since leaving the Marussia team at the end of last season. With the Lotus E22 race car, he drove only a few installation rounds with no recorded time. Jean-Eric Vergne drove on the track only twice and both times stopped on the track, causing the event to be interrupted by a red flag.

Kimi Raikkonen, who will be testing both days with Ferrari, has experienced a new nightmare. In all mornings, he drove only one lap, and in the second, his car broke down again, so the Finn did not record the time. Mechanics are expected to rectify the fault quickly enough for the Finn to be able to drive in the afternoon.