The first day of testing in Jerez was something of a disappointment from a fan's perspective, but for the teams it was the first step into an epic journey of self-discovery and hard work. Having poured their hearts and souls into the new cars over the winter, they finally got to see their creations hit the track. Well, some of the teams did, anyway. Of the nine teams present, six managed to set a lap time, whilst two settled for installation laps and one didn't run at all.

Force India were one of those getting the mileage in, although it was just eleven laps for Sergio Pérez as he had his first experience of driving for his brand new team. The VJM07 broke cover for the first time today, after the team revealed some limited photographs of the car earlier in the month. Fans got an initial glimpse of the new shape of Formula One, with the increased black paintwork on the Force India hiding quite a lot of sins.

As Pérez explained, no one at the team was disappointed with a lack of running out there: "As expected it has been quite a slow day for everybody in Jerez. The main job was to learn as much as possible each time the car went out so that we could identify and solve any issues. It was not really possible to get a feeling for the car because we only did a small number of laps, but the important thing is that the car is up and running."