Ferrari fastest as pre-season testing concludes in Barcelona

Sebastian Vettel ensured Ferrari top spot as the second and final pre-season test of 2016 came to its conclusion in Spain on Friday.

Vettel's morning benchmark of 1m 22.852s - set on the red-marked supersoft tyres - held over the afternoon. Ferrari therefore finished their pre-season having set the fastest overall time in each of the two tests, and on five of the eight days in total.

Vettel was also the day's busiest runner with 142 laps - a handful more than Carlos Sainz, who remained second for Toro Rosso. The Spaniard was the only driver in the top five to set his best lap on the new ultrasoft tyre.

Williams' Felipe Massa found the biggest gains in the afternoon to jump to third, fractionally ahead of Force India's Sergio Perez - who briefly triggered a red-flag period when he stopped at Turn 11.

Lewis Hamilton also brought proceedings to a halt when his Mercedes hit issues - a transmission problem - for the first time this year in the closing stages of the morning.

The Briton wound up fifth overall, while team mate Nico Rosberg - who took over for the Silver Arrows in the afternoon - propped up the timesheets in 13th.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren's Jenson Button and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson all broke the 100-lap barrier, and ended the day in sixth, seventh and ninth respectively.

Renault's Jolyon Palmer edged Ericsson for eighth, while behind Romain Grosjean put Haas 10th, marginally ahead of team mate Esteban Gutierrez - who subbed in for the final hours - and Manor's Rio Haryanto.

The latter managed just one installation lap as the team struggled with technical gremlins in the morning, but had clocked 58 laps when the chequered flag fell to bring the pre-season to a close.

Teams now have two weeks until the season-open in Grand Prix on March 18-20.

Friday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF16-H	1:22.852		142
2	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:23.134	0.282	133
3	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:23.644	0.792	129
4	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:23.721	0.869	60
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:24.133	1.281	69
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:24.427	1.575	123
7	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:24.714	1.862	121
8	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:24.859	2.007	90
9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari C35	1:25.031	2.179	132
10	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:25.255	2.403	66
11	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:25.422	2.570	25
12	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:25.899	3.047	58
13	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.140	3.288	70

F1 In Slow Motion

A nice looking video for you guys! I'll post the test results later when I get home.

Raikkonen fastest on the penultimate day of testing

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time seen so far in Formula One pre-season testing on Thursday, as the teams completed their penultimate day’s running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.

Raikkonen clocked his quickest lap of 1m 22.765s - fractionally faster than team mate Sebastian Vettel's overall best from last week - late in the morning on Pirelli's new purple-marked ultrasoft tyre and it held up to keep him four-tenths clear of Williams’ Felipe Massa’s best, set on softs.

Force India's Nico Hulkenberg and Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen also tried the ultrasoft and ended the day third and fourth respectively, the duo separated by just over a tenth of a second.

Nico Rosberg was next up for Mercedes, with the world champions once again focusing on longer runs on the medium tyre. Rosberg completed 80 laps in the morning before handing over to Lewis Hamilton who added a further 63 to the tally en route to 11th in the times.

Sauber's Felipe Nasr finished his final day in the new C35-Ferrari in sixth, fractions ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso, with both among the seven drivers to accumulate over 100 laps of running.

Pascal Wehrlein and Daniil Kvyat were eighth and ninth for Manor and Red Bull respectively, the former having the least productive day in terms of mileage with just 48 laps completed.

Jolyon Palmer was tenth for Renault, while former team mate Romain Grosjean completed the timesheets for Haas, the Frenchman having off-track excursions in both morning and afternoon and then ending the day stopped on track and prompting the red flags.

Thursday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:22.765		136
2	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:23.192	0.428	119
3	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:23.251	0.486	137
4	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:23.382	0.617	159
5	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:24.126	1.361	81
6	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C35	1:24.760	1.995	116
7	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:24.870	2.105	118
8	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:24.913	2.148	48
9	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:25.141	2.376	121
10	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:26.224	3.459	98
11	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.488	3.723	63
12	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:27.196	4.431	78

Barcelona F1 test: Bottas puts Williams on top on super-softs

Valtteri Bottas put Williams on top for the first time in Formula 1 pre-season testing as he set the pace on day two of the second week at Barcelona.

The Finn clocked a 1m23.261s on the super-soft tyres in the afternoon, having completed a series of qualifying simulations on the soft tyres.

Mercedes split driving duties again with Lewis Hamilton's leading time from the morning, set on the softs, good enough for second, 0.361 seconds off the pace.

His team-mate Nico Rosberg focused on running the mediums in the afternoon and ended the day ninth as Mercedes logged an impressive 164 laps.

Ferrari had comfortably its most productive day of testing so far as Sebastian Vettel completed 151 laps while focusing mainly on set-up work on the medium tyres.

The German was fourth fastest, behind Renault's Kevin Magnussen who logged 126 laps.

A small suspension issue confined Jenson Button's McLaren to the garage just before lunch, but he caught up in the afternoon and ended the day fifth, with 121 laps to his name.

Red Bull focused on pitstop practice for much of the morning, with owner Dietrich Mateschitz keeping an eye on the action from the pit wall.

Daniel Ricciardo's attention turned to longer runs in the afternoon and he ended the day sixth, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, whose individual tally of 166 was the highest of the day, and Sergio Perez.

Sauber's Marcus Ericsson recovered from a delayed start to log 55 laps before stopping on track with one hour to go.

The red flag was duly shown, but the Swede managed to get back out just before the end of the day.

It was a miserable day for Haas, with Esteban Gutierrez managing just one lap due to turbo problems.

WEDNESDAY TIMES:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m23.261s	-	108
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m23.622s	0.361s	73
3	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1m23.933s	0.672s	126
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m24.611s	1.350s	151
5	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m25.183s	1.922s	121
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1m25.235s	1.974s	135
7	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1m25.300s	2.039s	166
8	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m25.593s	2.332s	128
9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m26.298s	3.037s	91
10	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1m27.064s	3.803s	79
11	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m27.487s	4.226s	55
-	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	-	-	1

(source: autosport.com)

Rosberg quickest as Mercedes up their pace in Spain

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg set the pace on Tuesday, as this week’s final pre-season test got underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Rosberg’s best time of 1m 23.022s, set on soft tyres, put him two-tenths clear of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas - who clocked his best lap on Pirelli’s ultrasoft compound.

It was the first time Mercedes have run the soft rubber, the world champions having used only mediums and hards in last week’s opening test. And it was another busy day for the Silver Arrows, with Rosberg notching up 82 laps in the morning and Lewis Hamilton another 90 as he completed a race simulation in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso brought out the red flags just before lunch when his McLaren stopped on track, but the team bounced back in the afternoon, with the Spaniard totalling 93 laps en route to a highly encouraging third in the times.

Just behind Alonso was Kimi Raikkonen, who spent much of the afternoon in the Ferrari garage thanks to technical problems, and Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat who also lost track time thanks to a brake problem which caused a small fire on his RB12.

It was also a frustrating day for newcomers Haas, who were forced to abandon their programme early thanks to a fuel system problem which left Esteban Gutierrez 11th in the times on just 23 laps.

By contrast, Toro Rosso and Force India enjoyed excellent reliability, with Max Verstappen completing a mammoth 144 laps in his newly race-liveried STR11 and Nico Hulkenberg 121 in his VJM09.

They finished seventh and eighth respectively, just ahead of Felipe Nasr who gave Sauber's 2016 machine, the C35, a solid debut as he racked up 103 laps.

 

Tuesday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:23.022		82
2	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:23.229	0.207	123
3	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:24.735	1.713	93
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:24.836	1.814	72
5	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:25.049	2.027	69
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:25.051	2.029	90
7	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:25.176	2.154	144
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:25.336	2.314	121
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C35	1:25.493	2.471	103
10	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:25.760	2.738	119
11	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:26.661	3.639	23
12	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:27.625	4.603	45