BARCELONA: Retired world champion Nico Rosberg was on hand to see Valtteri Bottas, his replacement at Mercedes, set the fastest time so far in Formula One testing ahead of the 2017 season. Bottas topped the time sheets in 1 minute 19.505 seconds — the quickest time of the week — using fast ultra soft tyres, covering 75 laps in the new Mercedes at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya circuit. He was almost 1.5 seconds faster than Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who clocked up 48 laps on soft tyres, while Jolyon Palmer in a Renault was third fastest, just over 0.24 seconds behind Ricciardo after 51 laps on softs.
Bottas put in more laps than anyone in the morning session on the third day of testing, with his time unofficially the fastest lap seen on the circuit since its layout change in 2007. The Finn hands over to team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon.
A day after Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time, Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel put in 69 laps in the morning session on medium tyres, posting the fourth-fastest time.
Two-time champion Fernando Alonso was also back at the wheel of McLaren, managing 28 laps to finish eighth fastest after two days of reliability problems affecting the new Honda engine.
Rosberg visited the Mercedes pit lane and was suitably impressed by the 2017 cars which are designed to go faster under new regulations.
“Cars look monstrous! Drivers will be gladiators! They will be on the limit physically! Great HYPE at the moment!” he posted on Twitter.
The German, who retired after securing the 2016 drivers’ championship, also posted a video on Twitter in which he said he did not have a single regret about his decision to quit.
“There was not one moment when I thought, ‘that should be me in that car’, so it was interesting to realise that. And perfect,” he said.
New Formula One sports chief Ross Brawn meanwhile would like to see a non-championship race for each season to allow teams to experiment with different formats.
“A non-championship race would enable us to vary the format and try something different — and evolve it,” he told Britain’s Sky Sports in an interview.
Trying out new ideas or making rule changes without tests is too much of a risk, he said.
“When we change format we have to be very sure we have it right,” he said.
Brawn, who was behind Ferrari’s domination in the Michael Schumacher era and had success with both Mercedes and his own Brawn team, has been appointed the sport’s managing director by Liberty Media following their F1 takeover.
“In the long run, we need to make sure more teams have the capability to compete,” he said.
But closer racing should not be achieved “artificially and we must not penalise a team because they are doing an exceptional job,” he added. — DPA
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