Chilton fastest on opening day in Spain

Max Chilton's late flyer sees him emerge as the surprise pace setter on day one of the in-season F1 test at Circuit de Catalunya, Spain

Chris Medland_1

13 May 2014

CLICK HERE to view full F1 day one test results from Spain

Max Chilton has set the fastest time for Marussia on the opening day of the in-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain.

In a day littered with red flags and affected by rain early on, Chilton took an unexpected top spot with a very late lap on supersoft tyres, his effort doing enough to head off Charles Pic, the Lotus reserve driver coming in 0.227s behind.

Also set in the final half hour of the day, Pic's lap of 1:26.661s on soft tyres was enough to edge out Spanish Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton by just 0.013s. Hamilton's best time came on the medium tyres, lowering his mark over three consecutive laps late in the day as he completed 79 laps.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth quickest for Ferrari but the team suffered a difficult day. On only his second lap Raikkonen stopped with smoke pouring from the rear of the F14 T and when he returned to the track in the afternoon session only 12 more laps were possible before his day ended with a trip to the gravel at Turn 4.

Jean-Eric Vergne was fourth fastest as Toro Rosso was one of two teams testing tyres for Pirelli - Sauber being the other - but Vergne took three attempts to complete a lap as his first installation lap saw him stop before Turn 10 and the second at Turn 4.

Just 0.003s slower than Vergne was Nico Hulkenberg for Force India as he completed 53 laps, the majority of which came in the afternoon session after early rain led to lunch being taken from 1200-1300. With running ending at 1800, that elongated the afternoon when the weather was improved and allowed the teams to complete more mileage in the dry.

Felipe Massa was seventh fastest for Williams and less than 1.1s off the quickest time of the day, completing 55 laps as he tried to understand the cause of his tyre issues in Sunday's race.

As well as Raikkonen and Vergne's red flags, Sebastien Buemi caused one in the afternoon when the Red Bull stopped between Turns 6 and 7 with a gearbox problem and didn't return in the final two hours. He ended the day behind Jenson Button and Kamui Kobayashi - the latter having crashed at Turn 3 in the closing minutes - with Giedo van der Garde bringing up the rear in the Sauber.