Silverstone Testing – Day 1: Bottas Alone in the World

The first day of young driver tests took place today at Silverstone, with three teams present. The first day was logically dominated by Valtteri Bottas in the Williams-Renault.

The time set by Bottas – whose exclusive interview for MotorsInside you can find – was achieved during the morning, clocking 1:31.436 on a dry track, seven-tenths ahead of the absolute best time set by a driver during the previous weekend. It was the first dry practice session of the Grand Prix, and the driver in question was Fernando Alonso, who had put his Ferrari at the top of the timesheet in Free Practice 3 with a 1:32.167. However, the comparison remains obviously very delicate to establish. In any case, the Williams driver – rumored to replace Bruno Senna if he took too long to convince – took advantage of the afternoon to complete several long stints and a race simulation, totaling 120 laps completed in the day.

Far behind, we find the two drivers engaged by Marussia in these test days, both from the junior team of the Russian team in GP2, namely the British driver Max Chilton (21 years old, 5th in the GP2 championship) and the Indonesian Rio Haryanto (19 years old, 15th in GP2). Chilton took the second position, clocking a time of 1:36.558 (in 34 laps), almost matching Timo Glock’s time during the free practice sessions of the British Grand Prix, where the German had recorded 1:36.605. However, Rio Haryanto is eight-tenths behind Chilton, with a best lap time of 1:37.404, but with only 19 laps on the clock, having lost precious time in the pits due to the adjustment of his brake pedal.

To wrap up this ranking, HRT is also present and has brought along Ma Qing Hua, whose exclusive interview conducted during the British Grand Prix can be found at the following link. The company’s driver became the first man born in China to drive a Formula 1 car – Ho-Pin Tung was born in the Netherlands. He clocked a time of 1:37.829 (on soft tires) during a qualifying simulation, as noted by HRT, which also stated that without a braking lock-up, the time could have been slightly better. However, it is six-tenths of a second off the best dry time set by Narain Karthikeyan during FP3. The Chinese driver also added some excitement to the long English afternoon by making an error at the exit of Village after activating DRS a bit too early. It should be noted that HRT is expected to pack up and not return to the track tomorrow.

Finally, as an old regular of the region, the rain came to disrupt the session around 5:30 PM French time, not preventing Valtteri Bottas from trying his luck one last time before the checkered flag.

Ranking of the first day of testing in Silverstone: