Constructors champions Mercedes showed that the new regulations and cars in Formula One will not affect their performance by dominating the opening day of pre-season practice.

In a day where Lewis Hamilton and new teammate Valtteri Bottas shared time in the new Silver Arrow, Bottas opted to get comfortable in the new car, by doing 79 laps around the track in only four hours of driving. Only Sebastian Vettel and Felippe Massa did more.

‘It’s a great feeling, the engineers did an amazing job in the winter. I only started a month ago, but what I have seen has been very impressive. For us, the main thing is to get the mileage now,’ Bottas said after his first run in the Mercedes.

Frustrated drivers: 

While Bottas did 79 laps around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya track, there was frustration for Daniel Riccardo who only managed four laps in his Red Bull before it came to a sudden stop and had to be returned to the pits. Fernando Alonso had a frustrating day as he had oil-related issues with his car after making it around the track just once.

Hamilton doing what he does best:

Defending drivers-champion, Lewis Hamilton, went for speed as he set the fastest time of the day, bettering Ferrari’s Sebastion Vettel by 0.113 seconds. His fastest time of 1 minute, 21.765 seconds shaved a second off the fastest lap through a full right days of testing last year. It was also faster than his pole-winning lap of 1:22.00 at the Spanish GP.

Nothing stopping Mercedes:

Rival teams hoped that regulation changes to produce more downforce and grip by mandating wider vehicles and tires would have closed the gap between them and Mercedes, but it looks like they are still well ahead of the pack if you look at the early testing results.

Will anybody be able to challenge them for the title this season?

Photo: Jordi Galbany/Getty Images