Grosjean leads morning on Day 1 in Barcelona
Romain Grosjean led Haas to the top of the timesheets on the opening morning of Formula 1 in-season testing on Tuesday, edging out Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton by less than one-tenth of a second.
Two days after his first-lap crash that left him with a grid penalty for the next race in Monaco, Grosjean racked up 73 laps through the first four hours of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, recording a fastest lap time of 1m18.449s.
Romain Grosjean led Haas to the top of the timesheets on the opening morning of Formula 1 in-season testing on Tuesday, edging out Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton by less than one-tenth of a second.
Two days after his first-lap crash that left him with a grid penalty for the next race in Monaco, Grosjean racked up 73 laps through the first four hours of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, recording a fastest lap time of 1m18.449s.
The lap was good enough to give Grosjean P1 when the chequered flag came out for lunch at 1pm, with Hamilton sitting just 0.094 seconds behind in second place.
Hamilton's car was fitted with a new rain-light system, featuring an LED strip on both of the rear-wing endplates, similar to the solution used in LMP1 by Toyota and Audi in recent years.
Max Verstappen finished the morning third for Red Bull ahead of Renault's Carlos Sainz Jr., with Stoffel Vandoorne slotting into fifth for McLaren. Vandoorne only completed a couple of installation laps in the opening two hours of running, but ended the session with 30 laps under his belt.
Formula 2 racer Nicholas Latifi enjoyed his first F1 running with Force India on Tuesday, finishing the morning sixth, 1.6 seconds back from Grosjean's fastest time. Sebastian Vettel was seventh for Ferrari ahead of Williams' Oliver Rowland in eighth.
Rising British drivers Lando Norris and George Russell were both completing Pirelli tyre testing duties through the morning for McLaren and Force India respectively. Norris managed 76 laps en route to P9, and will hand the McLaren MCL33 car over to Oliver Turvey for the afternoon. Russell took 11th, finishing behind Sauber's Antonio Giovinazzi, while Sean Gelael propped up the timesheets in 12th.
Following a one hour break for lunch, test running will resume at 2pm local time in Barcelona before concluding at 6pm.
