Raikkonen fastest again as first test in Barcelona ends

Kimi Raikkonen clocked the fastest time on the last day of the first test in Barcelona after he drove fastest lap 1: 20.872 on a track that dried up after being artificially soaked night before.

Pirelli and the FIA ​​agreed that one of the first four days of the test will be reserved for wet tyres testing, and after the rain did not fall organizers had to soak the track with 250,000 liters of water from a nearby farm to enable drivers and teams to test wet tyres in the mornin,

Last year drivers have complained about the behavior of Pirelli wet tyres in extreme wet conditions, especially their heating ability and water draining so the official supplier of F1 tyres Pirelli had to prepare and test better product.

• Mercedes with most laps in first test, but Ferrari closes in

Williams decided not to drive on the last day of the test due to the damage sustained in incident of 19-year-old Canadian Lance who had three incidents in the new FW40 in two test days. Young driver was defended by triple world champion Lewis Hamilton, who said that the cars are noticeably more difficult and challenging to drive.

Hamilton also didn’t drive in the morning because of an electrical fault that forced world champions to spend the morning in the garage.

The track dried up before noon and Raikkonen was the morning of the fastest with 1: 22.305, but Pirelli soaked the track during the lunch break (13-14h) again even though they said they would not do it again.

During the afternoon part, we saw a similar scenario – wet track where few people went out but with significantly more running when the track dried up.

The fastest was again Raikkonen who on soft clocked 1:20.872, for a total of 92 laps, which is the second best after Grosjean in Haas. Max Verstappen was 0.897 seconds slower on the same tires and seven laps less, but Palmer in Renault was only nine thousandths slower in third place, albeit with only 39 laps.

Romain Grosjean was fourth fastest on the ultrasoft with the most laps of any driver on the last day (116). Antonio Giovinazzi was fifth in the Sauber C36, but using the softest ultrasoft tyres.

Stoffel Vandoorne drove 66 laps for McLaren Honda, six less than Alonso yesterday. Belgian finished seventh fastest on the softest ultrasoft compound.

Bottas drove only in the afternoon and set the eighth fastest time on soft with solid 68 laps while Mercedes had to interrupt his program earlier because the engineers “found something they did not like’ during the last hour of running.

Hulkenberg was the slowest driver with timed lap, 4.102 seconds behind Raikkonen. Kvyat completed only one lap in the morning after a disastrous day for the team from Faenza.

The team decided to replace the Renault engine to enable  Kvyat and Sainz to get some laps in the afternoon, but their STR12 didn’t manage to leave garage.

Testing continues on Tuesday, March 7 and ends on March 10.

Day four results

GALLERY