Mercedes still positive despite first day testing crash - The first day of 2014's pre-season running gets underway in Jerez
Published by Christine
There wasn’t an awful lot of running on the first day of testing in Jerez, as teams worked out the final niggles on their new cars and took to the track to gingerly try out the new machinery. Lewis Hamilton was an early casualty, when a front wing failure sent him spinning off track into the barriers.
He was unharmed, but it halted their running whilst the car was retrieved and repaired. Afterwards he called it a small hiccup, and the Mercedes team seemed very happy with their day despite that small problem.
Williams and Sauber only completed seven laps throughout the day, and Ferrari were the hardest working but still only managed 31. Kimi Räikkönen’s time of 1:27.104 was the fastest of the day, but was about eight seconds off the pace of last year’s Jerez testing. Sebastian Vettel and Marcus Ericsson, for Red Bull and Caterham respectively, only completed installation laps, neither setting a time by the end of the day.
McLaren were present but found electrical issues in the car that prevented them from running at all, whilst Marussia aren’t set to appear until tomorrow.
