JEREZ, Spain — Lewis Hamilton walked away from a heavy crash after putting in the first laps of Formula One's new turbo era in testing with Mercedes Tuesday. Twin black streaks of scorched tire rubber at the end of the Jerez pit straight marked the asphalt where the 2008 world champion had locked up and careered into the tire wall. Mercedes blamed a car failure, on the Briton's 18th lap of the day, for the crash and was investigating. Witnesses said the front wing appeared to break off. Hamilton also crashed last year in his first test for Mercedes after moving from McLaren, whose car had yet to break cover on a remarkably quiet Tuesday with all teams grappling with the new power units. By lunchtime only Hamilton and Toro Rosso's Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne had set timed laps and only five cars had been seen in action. One of them was Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, that brought out the first red flag of the day when it stopped out on the circuit early on. With a thin new moon still visible over the circuit, Hamilton eased the sleek looking F1 W05 out of the pitlane shortly after 0800 GMT for an installation lap before silence resumed. Formula One has ditched the ear-splitting 2.4-liter V8 engines for a new turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 with complex energy recovery systems and more emphasis on fuel economy. Hamilton's opening lap, the first public appearance of a new car on track, indicated the whinier and less rasping sound would take some getting used to. Mercedes, which carried out a private 40km shakedown at Silverstone with Germany's Nico Rosberg Friday, presented the car in the pitlane shortly after dawn with champions Red Bull taking the wraps off its RB 10 challenger minutes later. More than four hours after the test started, Red Bull's quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel had still to appear on track as the team worked on an unspecified problem that had emerged overnight. “Obviously the car is still extremely new and still being completed as we speak and I think there was just a small setup issue that the guys want to have correct before we go out on track,” principal Christian Horner told reporters. “Hopefully that will be in the very near future.” Ten of the 11 teams - all but Lotus - are in Jerez for the test but tail-enders Marussia and Caterham hit early problems. Marussia's car was still on it's way to Jerez after being delayed at the factory by what team principal John Booth called a “small but frustrating teething problem.” Malaysian-owned Caterham delayed its car presentation due, according to their Twitter feed, to “some last minute issues bolting it together.” Mercedes wishes Schumi well Mercedes has included a message of support for its former driver Michael Schumacher on the side of its new Formula One car, which was unveiled Tuesday. The car has the Twitter hashtag #KeepFightingMichael written on the upper part of its chassis just behind the driver's seat. Schumacher suffered severe head injuries in a skiing accident on Dec. 29 and has been in a coma since. He remains in a stable condition. ‘All bets are off' No team can be considered a favorite for this year's championship because the new V6 engines create far too much uncertainty, Red Bull principal Christian Horner said Tuesday. “All bets are off,” Horner told reporters after the presentation of his team's new car. “It's impossible to predict. I think the power unit's going to be a big element in this world championship and only time will tell. Reliability is going to be key, the races are going to have a different look to them as well in terms of how the drivers and teams strategically go about racing because fuel economy is going to be critical,” he added. — Agencies
