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Mercedes may be in for some real competition this year.

Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari Obliterate Circuit De Catalunya's F1 Lap Record

Four-time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel set a blistering lap that put the rest of the field on notice.

BY JERRY PEREZ MARCH 8, 2018

After hovering near the top of the timesheets for several days now, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel managed to squeeze the most out of his SF17H to clock in the fastest time ever for a Formula 1 car around the famous Circuit de Catalunya, near Barcelona, Spain. The German driver eclipsed the previous best time set by Daniel Ricciardo at the wheel of his RB14 by almost one whole second.

The four-time F1 champ took advantage of the cool ambient temperatures and dry track conditions to push his Ferrari and its new Pirelli Hypersoft tires to the limit for a total of 84 laps, with the scorching lap recorded shortly before the track closed for lunch break. In order to comprehend just how quick Vettel's lap really is, The Drive went back to the archives and unearthed the following: Lewis Hamilton's pole-setting lap time in 2016 was 1:22.000 and 1:19.149 in 2017. Vettel's recent lap was 1:17.182, that's nearly five seconds faster than Hamilton's 2016 pole.

The second-to-last testing day is only halfway over, which means that there's plenty of time for Mercedes-AMG, Red Bull, and even Ferrari to dip into the one-sixteens. Unfortunately, according to the FIA rules, lap times set during pre-season tests do not count as official track records, which means that Vettel's laps will go down in history as an "unofficial track record" unless it's bested today or tomorrow, of course.

Do you feel like Formula 1 could use a healthy dose of risqué restarts in order to drum up some artificial excitement? Well, the FIA thinks so, and it’s already giving its master plan a trial at this week’s second and final pre-season test in Barcelona, Spain. Needless to say, the stunt was received with mixed emotions in the paddock, as well as in the grandstands.

Drivers for Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Haas and Red Bull F1 teams were the guinea pigs in the first-ever systems-check, which took place at the end of open track testing on Tuesday, according to Motorsport. The standing restart system will operate via the same trackside light panels that currently announce the presence of a safety car (SC) or virtual safety car (SFC) to the drivers, but they will display standing start (SS) or rolling start (RS) instead. Drivers will also receive warning lights on their steering wheels, as well as confirmation via their onboard radios on which type or restart will be taking place.

Perhaps the most important tidbit that still isn’t clear is what criteria the FIA will follow or what the deciding factors will be to implement a standing restart, or not, during a Grand Prix. Of course, this is merely an attempt to artificially enhance the quality of racing for the sake of viewership, but it’s far from being fair. Why should a leading driver be forced to bring his car to a halt and further degrade his clutch, engine, and tires for the sake of “spicing things up?”

Most of the drivers kept to themselves about the restart gimmick, with the exception of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen. “This surface needs a lot of temperature,” said Magnussen. “The restart stuff we did at the end was impossible. We couldn’t have done that in a race, I couldn’t get my tires to work at all - I could barely get going.”

http://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/19055/formula-1-drivers-test-new-standing-restart-system-in-spain