Formula 1 Testing: Times from Day One at Barcelona

The first day of the second official F1 test of 2012 got underway on Tuesday at a sunny Circuit de Catalunya, north of Barcelona in Spain.

Mercedes were the only team launching their new car, having used a modified 2011 chassis on 2012-spec tyres during the opening test at Jerez. 

Featuring the platypus-like stepped nose seen on the majority of the cars so far, the W03 was held back in the development stage as long as possible as the team searched for crucial time.  Whether this decision was the right one remains to be seen.

After a short private test on Monday, the W03 joined the Red Bull RB8, McLaren MP4-27, Ferrari F2012, Lotus E20, Force India VJM05, Sauber C31, Toro Rosso STR7 and Caterham CT01 in the "launched cars" column.

That leaves Marussia and HRT as the only teams yet to unveil their 2012 challengers, though the former did attend the test, using a modified 2011 chassis to acquire data on the new tyres.

At the end of day one, a familiar face topped the timesheets.  Sebastian Vettel led the way with a lap of 1:23.265—set on the hard compound tyre—two tenths of a second faster than Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India.

#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:23.265	79
02	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:23.440	97
03	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:23.590	114
04	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:23.618	76
05	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:24.100	75
06	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:24.150	51
07	Sergio Perez	Sauber	1:24.219	66
08	Bruno Senna	Williams	1:25.711	97
09	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	1:26.035	31
10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:26.809	7
*11	Charles Pic	Marussia	1.28:026	121

* indicates a 2011 car with 2012 tyres

As at Jerez, it's safe to say that no one pushed their car to the limit, but several teams appear to have put in good performances.  Force India and Toro Rosso look notably "out of place" in second and fourth, and Mercedes seem to have got into the groove quickly in the W03.

Romain Grosjean's day was cut short after he reported the chassis felt "strange."  Lotus returned the suspect car to the factory and are flying out the machine used in Jerez to continue testing tomorrow.

Heikki Kovalainen also had a troubled day, with a broken track rod putting the Caterham out of action for most of the day.  The Finn eventually managed to put himself ninth but will be hoping for a more fruitful day when he returns to the car on Friday.

The times are not too far away from those set in the first session of qualifying last year, mostly on the 2011 hard tyres—1:22.960 was the fastest.  But attempting to draw any conclusions from that would be a dangerous business indeed.

Testing resumes at 9:00am CET on Wednesday.