Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado took advantage of a late soft tyre run to top an incident-filled first day of testing at Barcelona on Thursday.
The Venezuelan, who stopped twice with sensor issues in the morning, clocked a lap of 1m 25.011s in the E23 Hybrid with just under an hour of the session remaining to eclipse long-time pacesetter Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn ended up just 0.156s back on what was another encouraging day for Ferrari, with the 2007 world champion completing 70 trouble-free laps in the SF15-T.
Interestingly, both Maldonado and Raikkonen lapped faster than Lewis Hamilton’s 2014 pole position time at the same track for Mercedes.
Daniel Ricciardo had a couple of minor offs on his way to third fastest for Red Bull, just ahead of Sergio Perez in the year old Force India VJM07. The Mexican hadn’t expected to be behind the wheel until Friday, but at the lunch break Pascal Wehrlein, who’d been driving for the Silverstone-based team, was recalled by parent squad Mercedes to replace an unwell Lewis Hamilton. The world champion managed just 11 laps in the morning before deciding to end his day early.
Felipe Nasr gave more encouragement to Sauber by topping the morning timesheet, but in the afternoon the Brazilian rookie was involved in an unusual tangle with Williams’ Susie Wolff which left both drivers in the gravel and in need of repairs. Nasr eventually finished in fifth, Wolff in tenth.
Max Verstappen led the lap count, completing 94 for Toro Rosso on his way to the sixth best time of the day, but McLaren’s Jenson Button had a considerably less productive time for McLaren. The Englishman recorded an encouraging lap of 1m 28.182s in the morning before being sidelined for the rest of the session by a faulty seal on the MGU-K part of his Honda power unit.
Wehrlein ended with near identical lap times for both Force India and Mercedes, with Hamilton in the unusual position of rounding out the timesheet.
Testing continues at Barcelona on Friday.
Unofficial Thursday testing times from Barcelona:
1. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1m 25.011s, 69 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1m 25.167s, 74 laps
3. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1m 25.547s, 59 laps
4. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1m 26.636s, 34 laps
5. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1m 27.307s, 79 laps
6. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1m 27.900s, 94 laps
7. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1m 28.182s, 21 laps
8. Pascal Wehrlein, Force India, 1m 28.329s, 32 laps
9. Pascal Wehrlein, Mercedes, 1m 28.489s, 48 laps
10. Susie Wolff, Williams, 1m 28.906s, 86 laps
11. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1m 30.429s, 11 laps
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