Formula 1 Testing: Times from Day 1 at Mugello

The teams and drivers took to the Mugello Circuit in northern Italy on Tuesday for the first and only in-season test of 2012.

Dry running was strictly limited as rain fell in the morning.  The track dried out slowly as the session rolled on, but the wet weather returned later, and few teams can have completed all the runs they wanted. 

It was the first visit to the track for almost everyone, with the exception of Ferrari.  The Italian team own the circuit and, prior to the recently introduced limits on testing, used it extensively for car development.

Mugello features dramatic elevation changes, which add some character and beauty to a circuit probably more suited to testing than it would be to racing.

All the teams with the exception of HRT will be attending.  The Spanish outfit elected to miss the test in order to work on their car back at their new base in Madrid.  This will be, they say, more beneficial than spending three days in Italy.

Several teams elected to run test and reserve drivers on day one—Oliver Turvey and Gary Paffett for McLaren, Jerome d'Ambrosio for Lotus, Jules Bianchi for Force India, Rodolfo Gonzales for Caterham and Valtteri Bottas for Williams.

They were joined by Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Mark Webber (Red Bull), Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher (Mercedes), Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber), Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) and Charles Pic (Marussia).

As the other teams found their way around a circuit they'd never run on, the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso set the fastest time, a 1:22.444. Here are the rest of the results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
01	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:22.444
02	Mark Webber	Red Bull	1:23.648
03	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	1:23.891
04	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Lotus	1:24.048
05	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:24.100
06	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1:24.736
07	Oliver Turvey	McLaren	1:25.303
08	Jules Bianchi	Force India	1:25.475
09	Rodolfo Gonzalez	Caterham	1:27.197
10	Charles Pic	Marussia	1:27.359
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:29.179
12	Gary Paffett	McLaren	1:50.898
13	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	No time

The old "testing times mean nothing" line is more appropriate here than ever, as most of the cars appear to have spent what little dry time they had on the track going steady, rather than pushing.

But had it been dry, it's unlikely we'd have seen anything worthy of note.  Mugello will be all about testing new parts and observing tyre behaviours, and the four races we've seen so far tell us more about the pace of the cars than the test well.

Better weather is forecast for the Wednesday session, so everyone should get some decent running in.  The session starts at 9:00am local time (UTC+2).