BARCELONA, Spain -- Formula One's new regulations are well on their way to achieving the sport's stated aim of making the cars five seconds faster than they were in 2015.
On just the third day of this year's opening test, Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas set a lap time of 1:19.705 to go 4.976s faster than the pole position time at the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix. When the new regulations were announced one year ago, the target was to make the car's five seconds faster than the previous season around the Circuit de Catalunya, which, on today's evidence, is easily achievable.