Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was fastest in Formula 1’s post-season test day at Yas Marina Circuit with a 1’24.393 lap.
He topped the times by 0.269 seconds, with McLaren’s IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward in second place and Mercedes’ junior driver Frederik Vesti a further 0.017s behind in third.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jnr and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso completed a top six covered by 0.434s.
The test featured drivers from this year’s grid running on development compounds from tyre supplier Pirelli, and also less familiar faces who were in teams’ cars to fulfil a test requirement that they field runners with no more than two F1 starts to their name.
It was not a good day for Mercedes, despite Formula 2 runner-up Vesti’s strong pace, as they lost several hours of running with one car after George Russell crashed. The team said he was “completely okay” afterwards and they had “begun investigations into what caused the accident.”
Russell ended the day 20th on the timesheet, 1.89s off the pace but still faster than four of his regular rivals from the 2023 grid.
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Newly-crowned Formula 2 championship Theo Pourchaire (Alfa Romeo) and his former rival Ayumu Iwasa (AlphaTauri) were also in action, the latter getting his first experience of F1 machinery. The team fielded Daniel Ricciardo in the morning session in the sister car and then replaced him with team mate Yuki Tsunoda for the afternoon.
Aston Martin, Ferrari and Williams took the same approach so both of their race drivers could get seat time, while Williams even did the same with their young drivers as Franco Colapinto drove in the morning before handing over the FW45 to Formula 3 rival Zak O’Sullivan.
Haas’ Pietro Fittipaldi did more driving than anyone else, setting 130 laps, followed by Red Bull’s Formula E champion Jake Dennis (124), McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Aston Martin’s F2 champion Felipe Drugovich and Ferrari’s sportscar-racing reserve driver Robert Shwartzman (all 123). Ferrari got the most running in total, their three drivers completing 258 laps between them.
Although Fittipali was eligible to be considered a young driver by Haas for the purposes of the test, instead he took on the Pirelli development work. F2 star Oliver Bearman, who impressed the team in his appearances for them in practice sessions this year, got a chance to drive in the…
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