Vettel fastest on Ferrari bow

Vettel fastest on Ferrari bow

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel sent an early season warning to double world champions Mercedes by clocking the fastest time on his first day of testing with Ferrari in Jerez on Sunday.

Ferrari's German driver Sebastian Vettel drives on the first day of the Formula One pre-season tests at Jerez racetrack in Jerez de la Frontera, southern Spain on February 1, 2015

The German was the first man out on the track, even sending a message by overtaking Nico Rosberg in the pit lane on the way out for his first lap in the SF15-T Ferrari.

It wasn't until well into the afternoon that he surpassed Rosberg on the track, though, as he posted a best time of 1min 22.690secs during his 60 laps.

Vettel's positive opening day was in stark contrast to his disastrous test in Jerez during a troubled final season with Red Bull last year when he lodged just 11 laps over two days.

It was also a good day for Sauber as Markus Ericsson was surprisingly also faster than Rosberg.

However, the Mercedes engines were still dominant when it came to time out on the track as Rosberg racked up 157 laps and last season's surprise package Valteri Bottas completed 73 for Williams.

"That was the goal in the beginning to try and do a lot of mileage," said Rosberg, who set a record for the number of laps for the first day of testing.

"Of course I am feeling a few pains here and there because it is a lot of laps for the first day and the body is not used to it.

"It was a good day because that was our target to do the miles. Only then do you see what the problems are and the good thing is that we haven't found any major problems yet."

The biggest strugglers on the opening day of the four-day session in southern Spain were McLaren as their new Honda-powered MP4-30 could only manage six laps.

It was particularly disappointing for the huge numbers of Spanish fans who had turned out to see Fernando Alonso on his return to McLaren.

The two-time world champion was also way off the pace during his brief stint on the track, trailing over 18 seconds behind the time set by Vettel.

"It went as expected, it's a slow start," said Alonso.

"We saw last year how difficult it was for the teams to do laps. We need time. The car design is quite aggressive and innovative so we have things to discover slowly.

"I would like to do more laps for sure because after waiting for two months for the first day of testing six laps is not enough, but I think we are all happy, excited and inside the garage we had an amazing atmosphere today."

Red Bull faired significantly better than 12 months ago as Daniel Ricciardo went fourth fastest in registering 35 laps.

“So the first impressions are good," added the Australian, who claimed the only three races not won by the Mercedes duo of Rosberg and world champion Lewis Hamilton last season.

"We’ll get a few more laps over the next few days, but so far everything seems pretty encouraging.

"We didn’t do a whole lot of laps but definitely more than at this test last year! In general everything is behaving as it should."

The test in Jerez will be followed by two more in Barcelona later this month ahead of the new season, which starts in Melbourne on 15 March.

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