The first day of testing finished today in Valencia, moments after the Red Bull team revealed their 2011 title contending car. Sebastien Vettel finished with the fastest time overall in his brand new RB7, whilst Fernando Alonso came in at almost a whole second slower. However it is still early days in the development process with another 14 days of testing for the teams to get to grips with their new cars and Pirelli tyres.
The teams were working tirelessly to gather valuable data for the new Pirelli tyres, with Red Bull clocking up 93 laps, Ferrari having done the most at 98 laps and other long distance runners averaging at around 71 laps a piece.
Considering the lengthy runs of most teams there were no major reliability issues to report, apart from a minor situation where Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg had to park his MGP W02 on the front straight section of the track.
Despite the technical hitch, Rosberg declared that he was happy with how he felt in the car, saying, "The positive thing is that I felt at home straight away, it didn't feel like a car I didn't know, which is an important thing to straight away feel comfortable. ... I think it's just a better car in general. Ross [Brawn] has reorganised the company in many ways and improved the communications between the car and engine groups. It's going to be a big step for us."
The Pirelli tyres have held up well for the first day of testing. Each team has a dedicated tyre engineer with who they can relate important information to. The teams also get the whole range of compounds of tyres to choose from, depending upon their testing programmes.
Some teams still have not revealed their cars for the 2011 season. McLaren, Force India and HRT plan to show their new contenders within the next two weeks.
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