Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari topped the timesheets on the final day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain. Sebastian Vettel had set the fastest time of winter testing yesterday. As we are always told this is only testing. The fuel loads, tyres, testing programs vary from team to team. So to draw firm conclusions from the Ferrari showing might be foolhardy.
Kimi Raikkonen Fastest On Final Day Of Testing
The Ferrari drivers set the lap times on the newest and softest compound tyre- the hypersoft tyres. This tyre has not been selected for the first three races of the season by Pirelli. Teams like Mercedes and Haas F1 did not bring these tyres to winter testing.
Raikkonen set the 1:17.221 lap time in the morning session. As the curtain began to fall on the pre-season testing before the Formula 1 2018 season starts, McLaren and Renault provided some excitement. They bolted on the hypersofts and went for low fuel qualification mode testing.
Fernando Alonso vaulted up the time charts and finished second, half a second adrift of the Ferrari time. This sweetened an otherwise frustrating day of testing for the Woking-based team. A turbo issue curtailed Alonso’s track time in the morning.
Carlos Sainz, his fellow Spaniard, was third on the timesheets. Mercedes led the way with most laps done. Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton combined to do 201 laps. The reigning champions seemed unconcerned about setting quick lap times.
As this was the final day of testing, teams made adjustments to their driving schedules. Sainz’s morning session was cut short because of gearbox issues. So the young Spaniard drove in the afternoon session, instead of Nico Hulkenberg.
Robert Kubica gave up his testing session, so that Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll drove the morning and afternoon sessions.
All the teams will head back to their team headquarters to process the data collected during eight days of winter testing, across two tests. The drivers and their new cars will hit the track for proper racing at the Australian GP (March 23-25, 2018), the first race of the new F1 season.
Source: formula1.com
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