F1 - General discussion and 2017

Perez is back in the pits. Have a breather, lad – you've earned it. Thanks for the laps.

Hamilton emerges in the Mercedes for the first time today. He was complaining of a damaged floor yesterday morning, so will want a cleaner run today.

Stroll's improved to a 1m22.814s in the Williams. Massa's urged the youngster to rack up the laps over the remaining three days, but also told his critics to back off and give him time.
 
Super-soft tyres for Hamilton so let's see if he has some fun straight out of the box.

Hamilton's lap: personal best; personal best; personal best. Obviously. Because's not done a time yet.

But he has now! A 1m22.033s, which puts him P8.

Huge improvement from Hamilton, who finds 0.002s to slash his time to a 1m22.031s. Stays eighth.

Stroll's back in the pits with seven laps to his name. Solid start to the afternoon for the rookie.

Hamilton backs right off and posted a 1m47s. Then throws in a personal best first and second sector...
 
And the formula is repeated by Stroll with a 1:32.5 is followed by a 1:23.3

As for Hamilton, he's kicked his afternoon off on supersoft tyres and puts down a lap of 1:22.033 to get off and running. It's going to be an eight-lap run for Lewis.

Hamilton completes the set, and moves to seventh (above Sainz) on a 1m21.371s. Good gain, that. Five laps in the book for the three-time champion.

'Ello, 'ello, who's this then? Why it's Perez of course. Force India sets the Mexican on his way once more.

Hamilton's back in the pits now. First run of the day is completed. Insert the 'check' emoji here.
 
Another set of super-soft tyres for Perez, but he's a tenth short of improving his best.

Perez backs off and goes again...slower. A 1m21.751s this time.

Perez pits. Hearts break around the Circuit de Catalunya.
 
The Toro Rosso fires up and leaves the pitlane. Sainz that things are improving? Absolutely.

Sorry. You deserve better from us. We can be better. We will be better.

Sainz is back in the pits. We deserve that.

We've been forgiven – Sainz rolls right through the pitlane and out the other side. Few low-speed burnouts and he's good to go.
 
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Sainz running the show gives us another chance to run a photo of the STR12. Pic: LAT
 
The Toro Rosso is beautiful. Way better now it has a bespoke livery. The old one looked like someone had dropped a jam jar on a Prost.

Anyway, the Toro Rosso looks nice and Sainz is on track with soft tyres bolted on. Stroll's also back out in the Williams. The track's heaving.

Stroll's improved to a 1m22.510s. Sainz didn't spend long on track – he's back in again.

But Sainz has been replaced on track by Hamilton – and his Mercedes. That's not a suggestion that Hamilton's jumped in the Toro Rosso. That'd be something.
 
Confirmation that Red Bull's had an engine change. That's a legitimate reason for us not seeing Verstappen so far in this afternoon session.
 
Hamilton posts a personal best in the middle sector and the last sector and jumps to fifth on a 1m20.702s.

Noise alert! It sounds like a Raikkonen. It is a Raikkonen. The Ferrari driver heads onto the circuit for the first time in this session.

The soft-shod Stroll does one lap a couple of tenths off his personal best time, but a bit further off the next time round. He's up to 14 laps – his next target is to overhaul Alonso's tally of 27.

An hour of this session gone and, much as we've joked about track inactivity, McLaren really need to get out there now. Even Ferrari overhauled its tally in the morning, despite Raikkonen losing a lot of running to a "fluid systems issue".

Red Bull might be sidelined by this Renault engine problem, but Verstappen has more laps in the bag – and more importantly Red Bull's much further along in its programme than McLaren-Honda.

Lap count update:

1 Bottas (70)
2 Massa (63)
3 Raikkonen (43)
4 Verstappen (34)
5 Hamilton (13)
6 Hulkenberg (61)
7 Perez (61)
8 Sainz (51)
9 Grosjean (54)
10 Stroll (17)
11 Wehrlein (59)
12 Alonso (27)

Headlines from the opening hour of the afternoon:

• Hamilton and Stroll log their first laps of the day/week respectively
• Perez solidifies Force India’s ‘people’s champion’ status by breaking the early silence
• Red Bull confirms an engine change for Verstappen
• Sainz and Raikkonen appeared
• Autosport Live got a little bit weird
 
Lewis Hamilton wasn't especially happy with the W08's handling yesterday, a characteristic which surely wasn't helped by the damage the car picked up to its floor.

Speaking last night, he implied the world champions, despite all their mileage so far this winter, still had plenty of work to do to get the car into its sweet spot for Melbourne:

"We're on target in terms of the laps that we've done and the mileage, but we're always searching for more performance," added Hamilton.

"I think the car will start to come together this week. There's still bits coming in and we're improving all the time, but I'm confident by Melbourne we'll have the best car we can. We'll have all the upgrade parts, an understanding of the set-up and where we need to put the car to make it fastest."
 
Looking at the lap count for the day, Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll are understandably at the bottom having only had an hour's running each today.

They are, however, already closing in on Fernando Alonso's tally of 27.

If McLaren aren't looking competitive (hint: they're not) surely they at least need some mileage in this MCL32.
 
Sainz is back out in the Toro Rosso. Raikkonen, Hamilton and Stroll aren't pulling up trees, but everyone's running quite cleanly.

Speaking of clean, Ericsson's appeared for the first time today in the Sauber.

Sauber, as you all probably know, is German for clean.

Raikkonen's back in the pits in the Ferrari.

Ericsson gets on the board with a 1m25.600s.
 
PROBLEMS FOR MCLAREN?
We are still yet to see the McLaren of Fernando Alonso take to the track, as he only completed 29 laps this morning.
 
The most common finishing position for a Sauber is ninth. Since the team's F1 debut, it has finished ninth 50 times.

Testing - times so far:

1) Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) - 1:19.310 - supersoft

2) Felipe Massa (Williams) - 1:19.420 - ultrasoft

3) Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) - 1:20.406 - soft

4) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) - 1:20.432 - soft

5) Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) - 1:20.702 - soft

6) Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) - 1:21.213 - supersoft

7) Sergio Perez (Force India) - 1:21.297 - supersoft

8) Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso) - 1:21.872 - soft

9) Romain Grosjean (Haas) - 1:22.4428 - soft

10) Lance Stroll (Williams) - 1:22.510 - soft

11) Pascal Wehrlein (Sauber) - 1:23.000 - soft

12) Fernando Alonso (McLaren) - 1:23.041
 
I can hear the replacement Renault engine running in the Red Bull garage, so perhaps not long until they're out again - provided systems checks are all clear.

Ben Anderson
 
Could spy the car up on stands as I wandered past, so Verstappen on track will not be imminent. Fire up just finished down at the Renault works team too. Can hear some wheel guns going off so perhaps that car is closer to being ready to return to action.

Ben Anderson
 
Lance Stroll has returned to the pits after setting 26 laps.

Ericsson returns to the pits, which is a shame. Maybe we'll park our Sauber facts until he re-emerges.
 
It looks like Jolyon Palmer is ready for his first lap at Renault, who will hope for another encouraging session this afternoon.
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So, after an elongated lunch, @JolyonPalmer is now in the car and ready to rumble...
 
Hamilton, on soft tyres, winds up for a flying lap. Performance run or long run, please. None of that on-off stuff with no real improvement.

Nearly, Lewis. Hamilton pumps in a 1m20.796s as his first flying lap – less than a tenth off his best.
 
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