Seb: Day one but rather be quick than slow
Sebastian Vettel was relishing his return to the P1 slot but concedes it's far too early to read anything into testing times.
Vettel set the pace at Valencia on the opening day of pre-season testing, clocking a 1:13.769 in what proved to be a problem-free day, allowing him to amass 93 laps.
The Red Bull driver, who was driving the newly-launched RB7, was 0.784s up on the second quickest new car, which belonged to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
"I think generally it is better to be on top of the rankings rather than being on the other end," the reigning World Champ Autosport.
"It was the first day and it was most important to do laps, which we did - we did around 93 laps and that is quite an achievement and looking back it is something that we never got quite as good on the first day over the last two or three years, so that is a very good sign.
"On top of it I feel quite comfortable in the car, I enjoyed myself today and I think it was a good start."
But while the German was happy, he admits there is still a long way to go before the new season kicks off in Bahrain in March.
"Today was day one for most of us, and it is a long, long way - long testing season, before we start racing again in Bahrain and then a very, very long season - 20 races - so even if you start with the best car, things can change so you need to keep the development up," he said.
"Right now, we have just done the first step and we can be happy and proud of what we have achieved so far. It is day one and not much time between Abu Dhabi and here - 10 weeks - but for the guys to build a car that has no issues is, I reckon, good news."
As for his rivals, Alonso was fifth on the timesheets but second quickest of the new cars while Mercedes GP encountered a few problems. McLaren have yet to debut their new car.
"It is difficult to say at this stage, we haven't seen all the cars, particularly the McLaren car, it is not yet out on track," Vettel said.
"This was the first day so very hard to draw conclusions with so little running so we need to have more running on track to see where we are.
"It is practice for all of us, different programmes, different days and we need to be aware of the big teams - hopefully us - and besides us I guess McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, the logical ones, and who knows, a surprise like Renault who perhaps have an interesting concept from what we saw yesterday. So we will see.
"I think in general it is different to last year, so many things changed, especially with the diffuser, floor of the car, less complexity compared to last year, floors fairly simple and the same for all of us, and a lot of buttons to press this year.
"So we will see how we get on with that - new tyres on top. The car does feel a bit different but after all not that much."
Credit: PlanetF1.com (www.planetf1.com)
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