Kimi Raikkonen turns the fastest time during final day of preseason testing
Kimi Raikkonen topped the times on the eighth and final day of F1 testing in Barcelona as Ferrari underlined that it has a very strong package heading to the first race in Melbourne.
Amid suggestions that Sebastian Vettel had pace in hand on Thursday - and that Ferrari had been sandbagging - Raikkonen improved on his teammate’s previous best mark by some 0.4s with a lap of 1m18.634s, set on supersoft tires. No other team has bettered the 1m19s mark this winter.
The only downside for Ferrari was track time lost when Raikkonen stopped on circuit late in the afternoon, triggering a red flag.
Max Verstappen was second fastest with the Red Bull RB13, although he was more than 0.8s off Raikkonen, also on supersoft tires.
"I’m not too worried about the small issues we’ve had; that’s what testing is for," said Verstappen. "They aren’t major problems and I’m quite sure they will be solved before Melbourne. In terms of lap times, I think we just have to wait and see until the first race weekend. For us the most important thing today was to check the balance a bit more and work on getting the car where we want it. The performance is not too bad. For sure we want to improve, but for now it’s OK. Testing is just about trying to improve the car, it’s not about qualifying lap times."
Toro Rosso showed improved form as Carlos Sainz dipped into the 1m19s bracket with the third best time of the day with ultrasoft tires.
Once again Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton shared the Mercedes W08, with the Finn fourth fastest on the day and his teammate fifth, although clearly there was more to come from the silver car.
"I got in a reasonable amount of laps on my last morning in the car and leave testing feeling confident and ready to race," said Bottas. "I feel that as a team we have been able to improve how we work together, that we have a great spirit and real will to win."
Renault became the fifth team to break the 1m20s barrier today as Nico Hulkenberg logged the yellow car’s best lap of the week.
Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll enjoyed solid days for Force India and Williams respectively.
"We’ve been reliable this week and hit our targets in a lot of areas," said Perez. "Especially in terms of getting miles on the car. We’ve learned a huge amount and understood where we can improve. Today was my busiest day in the car so far doing a bit of everything – short runs, long runs and setup work to understand where we can find more performance from this car."
"I did some good running this afternoon with long runs so it’s all positive stuff," stated Stroll. "It was obviously a frustrating week last week with the couple of things that happened, but we had a good week this week. We got all our running in – long runs, short runs, and all compounds of tires – so it was good. I think we still have to stay calm ahead of Australia and just do our work and then see where we are."
At Haas progress was spoiled for Romain Grosjean by a trip into the gravel and then a second stoppage on track, restricting the Frenchman’s mileage.
"We only have eight days, of which you only get four as a driver and one of those was the wet day I had last week," said Grosjean. "Yes, the big teams are ready, but for us there are still a few unknowns going to Melbourne. That’s the charm of Formula One. That said, I think we have some good ideas where we can improve the car and, hopefully, the updates we’re going to get in Australia will go our way."
Once again it was a disappointing day for McLaren as Fernando Alonso ran only 43 laps.
Friday results
1. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1m18.634s
2. Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m19.438s
3. Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso) 1m19.837s
4. Valtteri Bottas (Williams) 1m19.845s [AM]
5. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m19.850s [PM]
6. Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) 1m19.885s [AM]
7. Sergio Perez (Force India) 1m20.116s
8. Jolyon Palmer (Renault) 1m20.205s [PM]
9. Lance Stroll (Williams) 1m20.335s
10. Romain Grosjean (Haas) 1m21.389s
11. Fernando Alonso (McLaren) 1m21.389s
12. Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) 1m21.670s [AM]
13. Pascal Wehrlein (Sauber) 1m23.527s [PM]
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