Formula 1

A new floor and a circuit-specific rear wing are among Ferrari's first major 2022 F1 upgrade package, revealed on Friday at the Spanish GP.

A high-downforce rear wing has also been declared. The new floor is also designed to help combat the porpoising Ferrari has suffered in the opening grands prix and allow it to run the car lower to the ground. But Red Bull has developed its RB18 more since the start of the season and that has been the faster car in the last two races, allowing Max Verstappen to score back-to-back wins.

Results from the first practice session at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix, Round 6 of the 2022 Formula 1 world championship.

2022 F1 Spanish Grand Prix - FREE PRACTICE RESULTS (1) F1 2022 Spanish Grand Prix - Free Practice Results (1) Results from the first practice session at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix, Round 6 of the 2022 Formula 1 world championship.

The FIA has cleared Aston Martin after carrying out an investigation into the similarities between its updated Formula 1 car and Red Bull's car ahead of the ...

A spokesperson from Aston Martin said: “We have shared details of our update with the FIA technical people. “The investigation, which involved CAD checks and a detailed analysis of the development process adopted by Aston Martin, confirmed that no wrongdoing had been committed, and therefore the FIA considers that the Aston Martin aerodynamic upgrades are compliant,” the statement from the FIA reads. The FIA clamped down on reverse engineering car designs in the wake of the Pink Mercedes case, and revealed in Barcelona on Friday that it did look into the updated Aston Martin car.

Formula One opened the European leg of the season in sweltering temperatures with an appropriately heated and fractious atmosphere in the paddock.

Following a raft of upgrades to the floor of the car, the team appeared to enjoy a decrease in the porpoising that has plagued them this season. We showed them the data and they found themselves with their hands tied because they had already issued the penalty. Fernando Alonso launched a scathing attack on the FIA, the sport’s governing body, for which he faces a potential punishment, while Red Bull in turn expressed scorn and disbelief at Aston Martin, who were accused of copying the design of their car. At the end of last year, two senior aerodynamicists, Dan Fallows and Andrew Alessi, left Red Bull to join Aston Martin and the Red Bull Team principal, Christian Horner, noted his “grave concern” that Red Bull’s intellectual property may have been compromised. But Red Bull were unwilling to let the matter lie. The Spaniard was given a five-second penalty at the last round in Miami for cutting a chicane – dropping the Alpine driver from a points-scoring position.

Red Bull are neither down nor out after a challenging opening day in Spain, but Max Verstappen said they have plenty of work to do to fight Ferrari in ...

“The long run, I think I was able to get a read in it. Because it’s not a track where the tyre stays new, you basically have one lap to have a read on the balance and then after that you’re just getting up to speed, but you don’t have really the peak grip. “We clearly still have a bit of work to do over one lap but long runs – at least they look quite decent, so I’m happy with that, just to try and find the middle way.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was fastest during Spanish Grand Prix practice in Barcelona on Friday, the sixth round of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship.

Sainz and Alex Albon (Williams) had a spat after Turn 1, which stewards will investigate after the session. Sebastian Vettel was the first to set a time on softs in his updated Aston Martin, which has been the talk of the paddock today, setting the bar at 1m20.703s. That was soon beaten by Verstappen on 1m20.006s. Teams ran medium tyres at the beginning of this session, with Verstappen leading the way on 1m20.932s, 0.046s ahead of Sainz and 0.063s quicker than Leclerc – the latter suffering a scruffy end to his lap. Russell was best of the rest for Mercedes, lapping 0.762s off the pace on 1m20.590s. He later had a big moment when he came across the second Red Bull, driven for the first time in FP1 by F2 racer Juri Vips. After early running on the hard tyres, Sainz set the bar on softs at 1m19.907s. That looked set to be toppled by Verstappen, who set the fastest first two sectors when he came across a huge amount of traffic towards the end of the lap. Leclerc was quickest in both FP1 and FP2, ahead of Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen across the two one-hour sessions.

Chants of 'Fernando' and 'Carlos' rang out at a bustling Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday, as an impressive crowd – keen for success from one of ...

On track, it looked like a good improvement, with Sebastian Vettel – one of only two drivers to achieve his ideal lap, to suggest he felt comfortable with the car – saying he thinks they are heading in the right direction. Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris were reasonably happy – though Norris was frustrated to have made a mistake by damaging the car and limiting his running to just six laps in FP2. Points should be the minimum expectation for both teams this weekend. Alpine and McLaren look set to battle it out for best of the rest despite enjoying contrasting fortunes in Friday practice. Championship leader Charles Leclerc said the high fuel performance “looks difficult” and they have a lot of work to do overnight. While fresh power units for both would have given them a few extra horses, it was the lack of bouncing that would have helped here. Mercedes brought a few upgrades to Spain, headlined by a revised floor – and the early signs are incredibly positive.

“The FIA carried out a routine pre-event legality check of the planned aerodynamic upgrade of the Aston Martin team for the 2022 FIA Formula 1 Spanish Grand ...

“Over the winter we had two philosophies that we developed,” he said. “So a big thank you to everyone. “Both teams collaborated fully with the FIA in this investigation and provided all the relevant information.

Charles Leclerc headed the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton during the qualifying simulations in second practice ahead of Formula 1's 2022 ...

Pierre Gasly was the first driver to miss out on the top 10, the AlphaTauri pipping the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Lance Stroll. A puff of smoke from the rear was matched by the engine seeming to die promptly as Bottas pulled up on the edge of the track at the exit of Turn 1. Verstappen had been the first driver to set a fairly representative lap time on medium rubber as he and Sainz dropped below the 1m21s threshold ahead of Leclerc and the Mercedes. Hamilton was a late adopter of the soft tyre and ran particularly well in the final part of the second sector to land the third-fastest effort - albeit a further 0.09s shy of his team-mate. Alexander Albon, Mick Schumacher, both Aston Martins and Esteban Ocon were the first drivers to hit the track in FP2 as the field stuck initially to the medium and hard compound tyre. The Ferrari driver and pre-event championship leader picked up his form from FP1 by also running to the top in the second of the hour-long Friday practice sessions at Barcelona.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was fastest during Spanish Grand Prix practice in Barcelona on Friday, the sixth round of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship.

Sainz and Alex Albon (Williams) had a spat after Turn 1, which stewards will investigate after the session. Sebastian Vettel was the first to set a time on softs in his updated Aston Martin, which has been the talk of the paddock today, setting the bar at 1m20.703s. That was soon beaten by Verstappen on 1m20.006s. Teams ran medium tyres at the beginning of this session, with Verstappen leading the way on 1m20.932s, 0.046s ahead of Sainz and 0.063s quicker than Leclerc – the latter suffering a scruffy end to his lap. Russell was best of the rest for Mercedes, lapping 0.762s off the pace on 1m20.590s. He later had a big moment when he came across the second Red Bull, driven for the first time in FP1 by F2 racer Juri Vips. After early running on the hard tyres, Sainz set the bar on softs at 1m19.907s. That looked set to be toppled by Verstappen, who set the fastest first two sectors when he came across a huge amount of traffic towards the end of the lap. Leclerc was quickest in both FP1 and FP2, ahead of Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen across the two one-hour sessions.

The FIA has cleared Aston Martin after carrying out an investigation into the similarities between its updated Formula 1 car and Red Bull's car ahead of the ...

A spokesperson from Aston Martin said: “We have shared details of our update with the FIA technical people. “While imitation is the greatest form of flattery, any replication of design would obviously need to comply with the FIA’s rules around ‘Reverse Engineering’. “The investigation, which involved CAD checks and a detailed analysis of the development process adopted by Aston Martin, confirmed that no wrongdoing had been committed, and therefore the FIA considers that the Aston Martin aerodynamic upgrades are compliant,” the statement from the FIA reads.

Mercedes went from F1 practice leader to its natural position in the Miami race, but it has reason to believe it's closer at the Spanish GP.

In reality, Fernando Alonso’s Alpine was the most consistently quick of the group – and the controversially updated Aston Martin with its Red Bull-like bodywork looked significantly more competitive than the previous version. 1m26.398s (9 laps) Nonetheless, Mercedes has real cause for optimism. “The tyres are going to pieces,” he radioed in just eight laps into his run. With its new floor, the W13 still needs fine-tuning into its sweet spot, but both drivers feel that’s perfectly feasible. Unfortunately for Russell, the Ferrari was circulating not far ahead of him and its tyre difficulties, therefore, had an impact on Russell’s average too. Verstappen did by far the most convincing long run, with a super-consistent and pretty long sequence on the medium tyres. “The car’s definitely reacting differently,” said Russell. “We don’t have the porpoising on the straight but we have it in some of the corners here and there which ultimately you need to dial out. “It’s the first time we’ve driven down the straight without bouncing. But both Hamilton and Russell were competitive in both measures. There is genuinely a sense that Mercedes may be on the road to Formula 1 recovery. Their judgements proved accurate over the following two days.

The drivers and teams report back on all the action from the opening day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, for the Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio de ...

As I said this morning, I think there’s still a lot of potential in our car right now, so the upgrades from other teams have to work in the first place to be able to better and that’s not always the case. Every driver does enough laps around here that we know the circuit like the back of our hands, so it was a good session to miss in that respect. “It was nothing too out of the ordinary, I think the pace seemed to be okay in both low-fuel and high-fuel. Still, the car I drove in Imola was probably the best car I drove in my career in terms of feeling and simplicity of driving. Only one session for me today, so there’s a big margin of improvement for tomorrow: I think I am still finding the limit of the car, as well as of myself, and I think that tonight we will be able to analyse all the data we collected today and come up with an even better set-up for tomorrow. I was pleased to see I could get on the pace quickly and that the feeling I had with the car was back to what I had in 2020. We'll be running in the simulator in Brackley tonight, trying to find a bit more time in the car but at least we have a good platform to base this on and hopefully we can find a little bit more to carry into tomorrow." The soft tyres have the most grip, but also have higher degradation compared to the Mediums and Hards, so we need to review the best choice for Sunday, which is expected to be the hottest day of the weekend. There’s a lot of things we need to improve tonight and then after FP3 tomorrow we can look to see what’s achievable for us in Qualifying. We’re not too far from the top 10 so we just need to go away, focus on ourselves and hopefully we’ll be in Q3 tomorrow.” There’s a lot of analysis to do this evening – but hopefully we’re in good shape for qualifying and the race." As for Ricciardo, he has the older spec parts on his car this weekend, and was waylaid in the garage for much of FP2. Coming out for his soft trye run quite late, he wasn’t able to find much pace and wound up a lowly P15. You learn a lot driving, as a junior driver travelling to races with the Team you get to hear the drivers’ feedback but to feel first hand how the car feels is useful for me but also useful for the work I do on the simulator.”

But three teams in particular – Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin – have brought especially significant updates to their cars. Mark Hughes takes a look at ...

This should keep more of the airflow over the flap’s upper surface from spilling over the sides, albeit at the expense of a small amount of total flap area. The floor has a re-angled outboard vane for the entry to the venturi tunnel. The vortex-generating cut-outs on the floor edge and the coke bottle and diffuser area have also been heavily revised.

Barcelona plays host to the sixth round of the 2022 Formula 1 season. Here's how you can watch qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Viewers from selected countries can subscribe to F1 TV to stream qualifying on a device of their choice. - Denmark - TV3 / TV3 Sport / Viaplay Can’t find your country or region in the list?

Charles Leclerc topped Friday practice for Ferrari at the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix. Here's how and when to watch qualifying.

For the entire 2022 F1 season, Channel 4 will broadcast highlights of every qualifying and race of each event. Sky Sports can also be accessed through NOW with a one-off day payment of £11.98p or a month membership of £33.99p per month. Live streaming through NOW is also available in the UK.

Aston Martin has denied suggestions that it got hold of illegal Red Bull data to help it with its Spanish Grand Prix Formula 1 upgrades.

And I think that was confirmation of that.” “They have come in and looked and then declared that it’s all legitimate independent work. But I think that just reinforced our feeling at the time that, of the two paths that that we had open to us, we'd gone the wrong way. So I think the accusations are very wide of the mark.” “All I can say is that at no stage did we ever receive any data from any team or anyone. “It's not just Dan Fallows,” Marko told Sky Germany. “There is evidence that data was downloaded.