The race is on. An F1 2022 is finally here for real, with the first day of pre-season testing in the books and McLaren starting out on top of the timesheets.

But lap times can be misleading in pre-season. So what did we really learn from the first day of running

and who has really started well? I'm Ed Straw and joining me to answer those questions and many more

are Gary Anderson and Mark Hughes. Before we get going, this is the first of our daily

testing podcasts, so you'll be able to catch up with us at the end of each day to find out what's

been going on.

And you might even hear a little bit of hotel ambience in the background as we're recording just to give you a sense of place. So before we get into it, quick rundown times-wise. All 10 teams are out. A total of 16 drivers. Landon Norris set the pace with a one minute 19.568 second lap ahead of Charles LeClerc, who said a one minute 20.165 second.

We'll pick up some of the other times later on.

But first, Mark, you went out trackside today.

We've been waiting for these new cars for years.

So what did you make of this new generation of Grand Prix cars after so many years of anticipation?

They are very different. They're very different from when before, and they're quite different

from each other, even than the behaviours. We've observed that they look different to each other,

and we were quite surprised the extent of that, which was true. But they are, they're behaving

quite differently at the moment, as I guess you'd expected the first day of running

of a completely new set of aeroregs.

But yeah,

there was a,

even before Lando set that fast time,

you know,

with a bit of a glory run at the end of the day,

I'd gone out in the morning.

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