MONTMELO, Spain -- The first rule of testing is not to read too much into the headline times. Even so, the paddock couldn't help but sit up and take notice when Sebastian Vettel set a 1:18.161 on the first morning at the Circuit de Catalunya. To give that time some historical context, it was over two seconds faster than the quickest time on the first day of testing last year -- albeit in temperatures 18C warmer this year -- and only one second slower than the fastest time overall from both weeks of testing in 2018.
Given that the opening morning of the test is usually devoted to systems checks and gathering baseline data, Ferrari's ability to hit the track and set serious lap times within the space of a few hours was undoubtedly impressive -- especially as the 2019 regulations were supposed to slow the cars down by 1.