F1: Ferrari tops first pre-season test but Mercedes impress with mileage

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen set the pace on the final day of F1’s first pre-season test on Wednesday, with a time of 1:20.841. Lap times, however,

Kimi Raikkonen\'s lap of 1:20.841 was good enough to top the overall timesheets at the opening pre-season test at Jerez, Spain. (Ferrari)

Mercedes racked up the most number of laps by far at Jerez while also showing a handy turn of speed. (Mercedes AMG F1)

Not only did the Toro Rosso squad post faster times than the parent Red Bull Racing squad, they also covered a lot more kilometers over the four-day test. (Dan Istetine/Getty Images)

Williams-Mercedes enter the 2015 F1 season with a great deal of optimism following their performance last year. (Alastair Stanley/WilliamsF1)

Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo didn\'t have a particularly easy time of breaking in Red Bull Racing\'s new RB11 at Jerez. (Red Bull)

The Ferrari powered Sauber squad posted some eye catching times too, which they insisted showed their true form rather than an attempt to grab attention. (Dani Reinhard/Sauber F1)

Lotus missed the opening day of the Jerez test but managed to complete a fair amount of work on their new Mercedes powered E23. (Lotus F1)

With the slowest times and the fewest number of laps completed, McLaren-Honda looked to be the team most out of sorts at Jerez. (McLaren F1)

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen set the pace on the final day of F1’s first pre-season test on Wednesday, with a time of 1:20.841.

Lap times, however, mean little with the focus very much on ironing out as many reliability issues as possible. In that context, reigning champions Mercedes AMG F1 looked to be in better shape than anyone by racking up over 2,000 km over the course of the test.

One team that had a particularly tough time in terms of getting enough mileage was McLaren with the team testing its new Honda power unit. The Japanese manufacturer’s much publicised return to the pinnacle of motorsport has been marred with reliability gremlins as it gets on grips with the complicated engine(and ERS) regulations that were introduced last season.

On the first two days, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button only managed six laps apiece with a ‘recurring issue’ consigning the MP4-30 to the garage for majority of the time. Things finally moved in the right direction Tuesday onwards and the team managed to log 67 laps during the final two days of the test. However, on each occasion, the Woking outfit was forced to cut short its running early due to issues on the engine side.

TESTING NIGGLES
It wasn’t smooth sailing for F1’s incumbent engine suppliers either with Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault also having their fair share of issues in the second year of their development cycle.

Lewis Hamilton’s first run in the new Mercedes W06 was briefly halted by a minor water leak while Nico Rosberg stopped unspectacularly on Tuesday when his engine shut itself down due to a fuel issue. Nevertheless, the team racked up 515 laps in four days - more than any other team present at the test.

The closest anyone came was Sauber which enjoyed four fruitful days in the Spanish country. GP2 graduate Felipe Nasr topped the penultimate day of the test but more importantly logged a total of 197 laps in two days worth of outings. His teammate Marcus Ericsson completed 185 laps on the other two days to take the team’s total to a whopping 382 laps - a far cry from 163 it managed last year.

Toro Rosso - whose team principal Frank Tost has promised that this year’s car is the best ever car coming out of its Faenza factory - was third in the ‘mileage leaderboard’ with Carlos Sainz Jr’s 136 lap run on Tuesday being the highlight.

FERRARI FORM ENCOURAGING
Ferrari also looks in decent shape, topping the timesheets on three of the four days and also looking strong if you rank the teams on the basis of lap count. Naturally, Kimi Raikkonen was upbeat about Scuderia’s latest challenger, while admitting that a lot of work still needs to be done on the chassis and engine side.

“I think the whole package is better all-round; the engine and the car itself, everything has improved,’’ Raikkonen said at the conclusion of the test. “Obviously we still have a lot of hard work to try and improve things but it's a good starting point. Compared to last year I found it much better but we still have a lot of things to work on and improve.”

Williams have been the anonymous team of the test with no standout results or on-track stoppages. Massa and Bottas completed a total of 278 laps with their fastest time enough to warrant eighth and nine position in the overall timesheets.

ROUGH RIDE FOR FORMER CHAMPIONS
Meanwhile. Red Bull endured another painful pre-season test with reliability gremlins subsiding the potential of the RB11.To make matters worse, Daniil Kyvat damaged the only 2015 spec front wing on Monday, meaning the team couldn't do any useful running all day long. As a result, the Milton Keyes based outfit ended the test with the least mileage of all teams bar McLaren-Honda.

Finally, Lotus’ 2015 challenger was flown late on Sunday but was built on time for the morning session on day 2. Having missed the Jerez test altogether last year, the Enstone team managed 190 laps of running this time around.

The F1 field will next converge at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona for two four-day tests from February 19-22 and February 26 to March 1.

2015 JEREZ PRE-SEASON TEST (CIRCUITO DE JEREZ, 4.428 km) – Cumulative Results

1. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:20.841 (197 laps)

2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 1:20.984 (148)

3. Felipe Nasr (Sauber-Ferrari) 1:21.545 (196)

4. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:21.982 (308)

5. Marcus Ericsson (Sauber-Ferrari) 1:22.019 (185)

6. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:22.172 (207)

7. Felipe Massa (Williams-Mercedes) 1:22.276 (144)

8. Valtteri Bottas (Williams-Mercedes) 1:22.319 (134)

9. Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso-Renault) 1:22.553 (170)

10. Pastor Maldonado (Lotus-Mercedes) 1:22.713 (137)