Lewis Hamilton crashed his Mercedes, world champion Sebastian Vettel failed to complete a timed lap and McLaren’s car stayed in the garage as Formula One’s new turbo era endured a difficult, and strangely quiet, birth yesterday.
Twin black streaks of scorched rubber marked the asphalt at the end of the Jerez pit straight where Hamilton locked up and careered into the tyre wall after a front wing failure on the first day of pre-season testing.
The 2008 champion was unhurt in the crash, on his 18th lap after being first out of the pit lane following the unveiling of his sleek silver F1 W05 car, but it ended his team’s track activities for the day.
“Apart from the ending, it’s been quite a positive day,” remarked Hamilton, who said it was early to give any assessment of the car.
“Always when you crash it’s big, but it’s OK. I was able to walk away, no problems,” he told reporters.
Vettel’s work at the wheel had not even started at that point, Red Bull’s quadruple champion kicking his heels while the team fixed set-up problems which had emerged overnight with their new RB10.
The German eventually emerged, after a brief squall of rain, for one installation lap.
Fans who had paid for tickets got scant value for money, with only 93 laps completed by eight of the 10 teams present on a cold day in southern Spain.
Kimi Raikkonen, returning to Ferrari after winning the cham-pionship with them in 2007, accounted for 31 laps after bringing out the first red flag of the day when he stopped on track early on.
That compared to a total of 657 laps run on the opening day of testing last year and 718 in 2012.
“We want to do more laps but it’s pretty normal with such a big change,” Raikkonen said.
“It will take a little time before we can run 100 per cent the whole time and be confident we don’t have any issues.”
F1 has ditched the ear-splitting 2.4 litre V8 engines for a new turbo-charged 1.6 litre V6 with complex energy recovery systems and more emphasis on fuel economy.
Reliability is a major concern and times were therefore of no relevance as teams focused on trouble-shooting rather than performance.
Hamilton had also crashed last year in Jerez in his first test for Mercedes after moving from McLaren, whose troubles continued in a 2013 season to forget.
The Woking team, who had hoped to have Briton Jenson Button on track yesterday, said they had been hit by electrical issues that led to the dismantling, inspection and re-installing of several major components.
Tail-enders Marussia and Caterham also hit unexpected turbulence.
Marussia’s car was still on its way to Jerez after being delayed at the factory by what team principal John Booth called a “small but frustrating teething problem”.
Malaysian-owned Caterham delayed their car presentation due, according to their Twitter feed, to “some last minute issues bolting it together” but finally made it out on track.
With a thin new moon still visible over the circuit in Jerez, Hamilton had got the new era rolling shortly after 9am for an installation lap before silence resumed.
Mercedes, who carried out a private 40km shakedown at Silverstone with Germany’s Nico Rosberg on Friday, presented the car in the pitlane shortly after dawn with champions Red Bull taking the wraps off their RB 10 challenger minutes later.