Vettel tops 2019 F1 test opening day

Vettel had placed the "C3" tires in the morning session by 1.183 seconds faster than his closest rival, Sergio Perez, in the Racing Point car.

Although he did not improve his lap time in the afternoon, Vettel increased his number of laps to 169 at the end of the day, which was enough to also occupy the mileage ranking, although his margin on the ground has been reduced.

Romain Grosjean reduced Vettel's advantage to less than one second. One lap behind the C3 tire was won by Carlos Sainz in the last half hour.

However, McLaren driver Sainz recovered with a time of 1m18.558 to overtake Vettel by only 0.397.

Sainz had helped out the first red flag of the afternoon when he had stopped at the pitlane exit at the start of the race. He attributed this problem to a loss of power and the car seemed to work well afterwards.

Grosjean had to settle for the third time, but Haas had a much better afternoon. Grosjean's car was stopped by entering the final chicane because of gas pressure problems earlier in the day.

Max Verstappen, of Red Bull-Honda, scored 128 laps and set the fourth fastest time behind Vettel, Sainz and Grosjean.

Kimi Raikkonen kept Alfa Romeo in the top five after setting the fourth fastest time of the day. He was using C2 and C3 tires and had been in second place on the timing screens, but had been resumed later in the afternoon.

Alfa Romeo was still among the teams that completed more than 100 laps, despite Raikkonen's visit to the gravel, which highlighted the first red flag of the morning session. His car stopped again while he was staying a little more than a minute in the afternoon, causing a new red flag.

Daniil Kvyat and Perez's Toro Rosso took the sixth and seventh best times, respectively, but both teams would probably have wanted to run more.

Kvyat needed the C4 to score his best time, while Perez added only 10 laps to the 20th that he finished in the morning, his team finishing at the end of the list.

After taking over the Mercedes in the afternoon, defending champion, Lewis Hamilton, did not beat Valtteri Bottas' eighth place at the end of the day, but he completed more laps with 81.

Behind the pair of Mercedes, Renault had a disappointing day as its drivers completed the order.

The new Renault driver, Daniel Ricciardo, succeeded Nico Hulkenberg for the afternoon, but did not beat Hulkenberg by 0.003s. He also made 21 laps less than the German driver.

Test time, day 1: