F1 - Paul Ricard - Resurgent Lewis tops timesheets on day one

Hamilton had to walk back to the pits after his MP4-23 stopped

Lewis Hamilton continued his strong form from the Turkish Grand Prix three days ago to head the field on the opening day of the Paul Ricard test.

All 10 teams were in action at Le Castellet in the South of France and used the circuit’s short configuration layout to simulate Monaco-style conditions ahead of next weekend’s grand prix at the high downforce track.

And it was Hamilton’s McLaren that set the early pace, with the Briton clocking a best time of 1:05.600 which put him almost half a second clear of Ferrari title rival Kimi Raikkonen.

The world champion’s F2008 was running a number of new aerodynamic components as the Scuderia chases improved form around the Principality this year.

BMW’s Robert Kubica was third after completing 124 laps, although he had to cut short one of his morning runs after returning to the pits with an oil leak on his F1.08.

The team changed his engine as a precaution and the Pole successfully completed its programme of set-up work, including trying different solutions to fine tune the car’s aerodynamic, suspension and engine electronics for Monaco’s unique layout.

Red Bull Racing took fourth thanks to Mark Webber, who tried out both the ‘soft’ and ‘super-soft’ tyre compounds to be used in Monte Carlo.

The Australian was narrowly ahead of Sebastian Vettel who was getting his first run in sister team Toro Rosso’s new STR3 car, which is due to make its debut next week.

Williams’s Nico Rosberg completed the most laps of anybody during the day (154) as he evaluated further aero updates on the FW30, including an engine cover extension.

Honda also introduced the promised tweaks to its RA108 car and Alex Wurz was seventh quickest overall, with Timo Glock eighth for Toyota.

Force India’s Tonio Liuzzi completed over a century of laps in the VJM01 and the Italian test driver was positive about the performance of the car’s latest developments.


Robert Kubica was at the wheel of the BMW F1.08 on Wednesday

“We did more than 100 laps with no reliability problems today, which let us test some new development items for Monaco, including some of the new aero parts, and some new updates to the suspension,” he said.

“We had to work on the balance a bit at first to adjust to the new items, but over the longer runs it was very consistent and we could make some steps forward.

“As we only used the hard tyre today the lap times were pretty good in comparison to the other teams who used the soft tyre, which gives a big performance advantage over the harder compound. I think today was quite a good start for the test.”

Renault gave Lucas di Grassi an outing in its R28 and the Brazilian tester completed 146 laps, with the team keen to get as much running in as possible with weather conditions looking uncertain for the rest of the week.

Testing times from Paul Ricard (Wednesday 14 May)
1. HAMILTON McLaren 1m05.600s
2. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m06.098s
3. KUBICA BMW 1m06.177s
4. WEBBER Red Bull 1m06.348s
5. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m06.372s
6. ROSBERG Williams 1m06.571s
7. WURZ Honda 1m06.681s
8. GLOCK Toyota 1m06.936s
9. LIUZZI Force India 1m07.346s
10. DI GRASSI Renault 1m07.430s

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