F1 cars roar back into life: First day of Pirelli wet F1 tyre test at Paul Ricard

Daniel Ricciardo set the pace on the first day of Pirelli’s wet weather Formula 1 tyre test at the Paul Ricard circuit.

The test, which was purely to gather data for the Italian firm’s wet compound by utilising the French track’s sprinkler system, was only open to one car each from Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren. Each team was only permitted to bring its 2015 machine, with no 2016 components allowed.

Ricciardo, who will hand over driving duties to his teammate Daniil Kvyat for the second day of the test, set a best time of 1m08.713s, which was over 0.4s faster than McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne.

The Belgian GP2 champion, who will also be McLaren’s 2016 reserve driver, will compete both days for the British team and was the only driver not to complete the full quota of laps as his car stopped because of a technical failure late in the day.

Pirelli’s Twitter feed posted updates on the test throughout the day: “After each run, our engineers check temperatures, pressures and make a visual analysis of the prototypes,” it said. “Wet tyre test ongoing, no pause even for lunch.”

https://twitter.com/pirellisport/status/691636701563863041?lang=en-gb

Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time of the day for Ferrari, almost one second slower than Ricciardo, and he will hand over to Sebastian Vettel, who will complete the test for the Scuderia.

A Ferrari statement said: "The type of tyre being used from run to run is not being disclosed as the session is being carried out as a 'blind test'."

Throughout the day, drivers were sent out at ten-second intervals for a series of ten-lap runs on various prototype forms of wet compound and after each set had been completed the track was sprayed again with water.

Day one results:

Pos

1 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m08.713s 99 laps

2 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1m09.131s +0.418s 87 laps