Although this week's first official test of the 2017 Formula One season has one more day to run, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel has hung up his helmet for the week after completing his share of the week's workload.
After just two days behind the wheel, Seb doesn't have a clear enough picture of the way the car is performing, in fact, that picture will only really become clear in three weeks' time when he puts the SF70H through its paces at the Albert park Circuit in Melbourne.
However, during his two days in the car, the German driver was able to clock up a total of 268 laps of the Barcelona Circuit, 129 on Monday and a further 139 on Wednesday. That's a total distance of 1247.54 kilometres.
“A lot, but never enough,” Seb said. “That's what testing is for, to give you an idea. And the idea is that these cars, as a result of the new regulations, are very different to last year, in the way they look and in the way of driving them. We are more or less at the performance levels of ten years ago, with a lot of aerodynamic downforce, but also with quite a lot more weight.”
“They are also more physical and at the end of the day, you feel tired, but this is normal for the first outing since the winter break. The tyres are also different and they behave more consistently. We have seen more or less what we expected: the cars are quicker in the corners and slower down the straights, because of the drag. But they are also great fun to drive.”
So, has he been able to make any conclusions at all?
“It's too early to understand the available potential: we focused on our programme, without paying the slightest attention to what the other teams were doing. All winter we have prepared so as to get here in the best possible shape. But there are still around four weeks to go to the first race and there is much work to do, so much in our programme. ”
