The first contact with the asphalt at the Spanish F1 Grand Prix left a certainty and a hope: that Red Bull continues to dominate with an iron hand -as seen once again with the best times of Max Verstappen in the two sessions training-, and that Fernando Alonso is willing to give war to the champion, playing at home with the favor of the new green tide.
A first day of F1 in Montmeló that was followed by 58,421 spectators, a spectacular entry, which is the third best Friday in the history of the Catalan motoring temple, only surpassed by the 2006 and 2007 editions (67,000).
The outlook was not very rosy for Spanish interests in the morning session: Red Bull dominated with an iron hand, with Verstappen and Pérez signing a double, and leaving their immediate rival behind 8 tenths. And it was neither a Ferrari, nor a Mercedes, nor an Aston Martin, but Esteban Ocon's Alpine.
To find the two Spanish riders in the first test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, one had to look down the time table to Fernando Alonso's 6th place, 9 tenths behind Verstappen, and 9th from Carlos Sainz, 1.1 seconds behind the Dutchman.
However, in the evening session (from 5 to 6 in the afternoon), the teams stopped testing and put on the soft tires to measure their speeds. Red Bull once again has the chances to win -its great aerodynamics has been enhanced on the new layout without a chicane, with the last two fast corners-, but opponents came out. And not just Alonso.
The Asturian, second, came within only 170 thousandths of Verstappen. Although Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) surprised, with the same soft compound, with a Ferrari engine, third only one tenth slower (0.270s), ahead of Pérez, on Ocon's surprising Alpine (he was 3rd in the morning), and of the two Ferraris, Leclerc 6th and Sainz, 7th. All of them stuck in just over three tenths. A maximum equality.
From the first day of training in Montmeló, the first moment of the year in which the teams apply their biggest packages of improvements and technical innovations to their cars, he highlighted the ease with which the times come out for the Red Bulls, compared to all his rivals.
The second conclusion, based on the times and rhythms exhibited, is that Alpine seems to have grown more than its rivals with the news. Ocon was 5th in the afternoon, 3 tenths behind Verstappen, and Gasly had been 5th in the morning.
The theoretical opponents of Red Bull did not quite take the step forward that they expected. Especially Mercedes, which did not go beyond Russell's 8th place (5 tenths away), with Hamilton 11th (6 tenths away), while the Ferraris were 6th and 7th (3 tenths away).
