De Vries fastest on day one of the Abu Dhabi F1 test after the season

Nyck de Vries led the first day of Formula 1 postseason testing in Abu Dhabi for Mercedes when Valtteri Bottas made his first appearance for Alfa Romeo.

Formula E champion de Vries was a young Mercedes driver for the test at the Yas Marina Circuit, which was split between rookies in this year’s cars and current F1 drivers who were using the new 18-inch tires in modified mule cars before 2022 testing.

De Vries set a fastest lap time of 1: 23.194 minutes in the last 30 minutes of the day, which was over 1.3 seconds ahead of AlphaTauri’s Liam Lawson, who enjoyed his first F1 race.

Formula 2 champion and alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri finished the day third fastest, just 0.006 seconds behind Lawson’s time, while IndyCar race winner Pato O’Ward covered two race distances on his way to fourth place for McLaren, with the test a prize was for his first win earlier this year. O’Ward had headed the morning session for McLaren, but only got six tenths of a second off his lap that afternoon.

Both Bottas and Guanyu Zhou made their first appearance for Alfa Romeo on Tuesday. Bottas received permission from Mercedes to take part in the test with his new team for 2022 and put on a simple white racing suit for the race in the mule wagon.

Zhou finished the day fifth overall ahead of Red Bull Junior Juri Vips, who caused one of three red flags to halt the run on Tuesday after spinning at Turn 14 and damaging his car.

Aston Martin simulator driver Nick Yelloly finished seventh ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, who was the lead driver in a 2022 mule car with tire compounds and finished 1.6 seconds behind O’Wards time in the unchanged McLaren, who drove that year. Ricciardo took care of the first red flag of the day in the second hour.

Lance Stroll finished ninth for Aston Martin while Robert Shwartzman completed the top 10 after racing for Ferrari that afternoon. He shared the young driver who ran with Antonio Fuoco, who also tested the mule car after Charles Leclerc performed that morning, finishing in 11th place.

Bottas finished 12th ahead of Fuoco and Yuki Tsunoda, while Logan Sargeant enjoyed his debut in an F1 car, while Williams finished 15th. An engine defect caused his day to end in just under 90 minutes, but the American managed his planned program with 92 laps.

Esteban Ocon finished 16th for Alpine ahead of Max Verstappen, who made his first appearance on the track as world champion for Red Bull. He was followed by George Russell, who tests for Mercedes in the mule wagon on both days before moving full-time to the team in 2022. Mick Schumacher secured Haas the running order in 19th place.

The last day of testing will take place in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Since teams are only allowed to use a young driver on one test day, only Haas will use two cars with Shwartzman and Pietro Fittipaldi tomorrow. Williams won’t be there on the second day of testing as he doesn’t have a mule car.

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