1st Pre-season Test: Day 3 Report
- Farhan Khurram
- Feb 21, 2019
- 6 min read
For the 1st Pre-season Test: Day 1 Report. Click here
For the 1st Pre-season Test: Day 2 Report. Click here
Daniil Kvyat topped the 3rd day of 1st pre-season testing with a 1:17.704s, as the Toro Rosso driver racked 137 laps.
The 1st pre-season test continued for 3rd day at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, as all the 10 teams and 13 drivers hit the tarmac to amass as many laps as possible and assess the performance of their machineries.
Williams was finally able to roll out its FW42 on the track, as 2018 Formula 2 champion, George Russell clocked a meager amount of 23 laps. His best lap time of 1:25.625 was way adrift off the rest of 12 drivers, who all recorded laps within 1:20 to 1:17 range.
Williams had earlier been absent from the 1st two days of testing, as the British team failed to deliver its FW42 to the track.
Acknowledging how embarrassing the delay was, Claire Williams communicated: “It became apparent quite late on that we weren’t going to firstly make the shakedown and then subsequent to that, not make the first day,”
“I’m not going to go into any detail”
“We thought we could get everything that we needed to together in order to make Tuesday, and then parts just weren’t coming through as we hoped they would, and in the time that we hoped that they would.
“So it transpires that we didn’t make it until today. But I am not going to go into any detail as to why that happened.
"I don’t think that it’s appropriate to discuss the ins and outs of what went wrong. Completing that inquest anyway has not happened at Grove yet."
Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat was the star driver today, as he reliably covered an extensive mileage of 137 laps, and incredibly topped the lap time sheets with a 1:17.704s on C4 tires.
Expressing his thoughts about how good his new car was, Kvyat said: “Honestly, I would like to say it does feel good, it feels to my liking so far,”
“Every time I’m out there, I pretty much know what the car is going to do for me so it’s a nice feeling so far.
“Of course it’s early days but the better the start, it’s always welcome. We plan to keep improving and keep working on the car.
“The amount of laps we did and how pretty much on programme we were all the time. We didn’t have any setbacks.
"We were really banging through the programme and we had no major issues. The guys did a great job so I am happy to be a little bit tired today.” he said.
Renault confirmed it will not be running with DRS today after the failure Ricciardo suffered yesterday. Both Ricciardo and Hulkenberg did a significant laps together for Renault.
The Chassis Technical Director of Renault, Nick Chester explained that: “It is a bigger wing, more loaded.
"The geometry’s changed as well for DRS – we’ve got a different line of action now for this year, so it's just a detail change we needed to make.”
“We had a problem with the DRS mechanism”
“We lost the link bar and then that allowed the flap to rotate. Fortunately a fairly easy fix; we understood what the problem was and then we fixed it and have been running DRS today [on Day 3].”
Their individual laps count was 80 and 63 respectively. Both the drivers were 4 tenths apart as Ricciardo ended the day being 3rd fastest while his teammate ranked 6th. Ricciardo lapped the circuit as quick as 1:18.164s.
Fittipaldi, Haas’ reserve driver stopped on track at turn 8. He got out of the car and brought a red flag. He was back after 30 minutes and went on to finish 6th on the leaderboard before the morning session ended.
“It was electronic problems which influenced the working of the engine,” described Haas' team principal, Steiner Guenther.
“The engine couldn't run safely anymore so we had to stop it.
“At least nothing is big broke, like when you break an engine,”
“[That’s] worse, but we just need to find what causes [the problems] and then we'll get to grips with it.
"But we are still good in time in my opinion to find it, so that's why I'm not too desperate about it.”
Another two red flag stoppages followed in the afternoon session, the latter of which also signalled the end of the day. Haas explained that the car constantly broke down due to electronics' problems. Nonetheless, both Grosjean and and Fittipaldi did 69 and 48 laps respectively, making it a total of 117 laps for the American outfit.
McLaren were absent for the first two hours of the session. They explained on their social media account that they made some changes to the car's floor and the front wing. Carlos Sainz managed to complete 90 laps by the end of the day with his best time being 1:19.354s. Carlos Sainz had earlier in the day, spun and ended up in the gravel as he lost control of his MCL34.
With just 30 minutes left in the morning session Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap of the 2019 winter testing so far. He used C4 tyres to set a 1m17.762s. But his lap time couldn't stay atop the standings, as Kvyat deposed him with an even quicker lap time in final stages of the day.
Kimi Raikkonen, who switched from Ferrari to Alfa Romeo this year, stated that: “We haven’t done any qualifying laps, we just ran with different tyres,”
“But I think generally, it’s a well-balanced car and it has pretty good grip.
"Once we start pushing we’ll see where we get"
“I guess it can always be better and, anyway, we’re not really pushing too much. We’re just trying things, but yes, it was fun.”
"Raikkonen has now completed half of his pre-season testing schedule, and is satisfied with Alfa Romeo’s start to 2019 after two days in the car.
“It has been good. Obviously, we always want more, but that’s the normal, never ending story. It has been some pretty decent two days as we’re learning things but we still need to learn more. So far it’s okay." concluded Raikkonen.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel took over from Charles Leclerc and finished the day with 134 laps in total. Vettel, unlike previous 2 days, focused more on long runs and less on setting blazing and top lap times. The fastest he could lap the circuit was 1:18.350s.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas took turns in the alternative sessions across the day. The Mercedes drivers were able to compile the biggest tally of laps by any team today.
Hamilton revealed that he reckons Ferrari to be quite strong and quick. He said: “Ferrari are very, very strong right now,”
“As you have seen, they are racking up great mileage as well and it appears that they have a better package than they had last year, which means it is going to be even more of a challenge for us this year.
“Ferrari always looks particularly strong, for the last few years they have looked very strong, so that is to be expected.
"For us, we are just going about our process and trying to understand, so as I said everyone is working incredibly hard.
“At the moment I don't worry about anything. I just try to focus on our job I don't know what everyone is doing, there are different fuel loads.
"I have been in this business a long time so I know how it goes over the first and into the second week."
Together, Hamilton and Bottas recorded a staggering amount of 94 and 88 laps respectively. They both finished the day at the bottom of the time charts with Bottas' best lap time being 1:20.693s, 0.125 secs faster than Hamilton's.
Max Verstappen's best lap time was a 1:18.787s on the C3 tires, he slotted himself in 5th, just a spot lower than Vettel. The Dutchman accrued a total amount of 104 laps for Red Bull as the Honda engine continued to show promise of reliability.
Racing Point, yet again trailed the rest of the teams, except for Williams, in terms to total mileage. The newly formed team could only produce 67 laps with the RP19 in the hands of Sergio Perez.
Among the 4 engine manufacturers, Ferrari managed to amass as many as 389 laps with Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Haas running the engine. Renault was a distant 2nd, as both the factory team as well as McLaren together stacked 283 laps in total.
Honda showed some promise and a highly improved reliability compared to previous years. Both the sister teams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso clocked a total of 241 laps today, ensuring a strong 3rd day of testing.
The benchmark engine and the current constructors' title defenders, managed to rack 272 laps, the 3rd highest of all the 4 engine manufacturers. Mercedes' factory team as well as Racing Point and Williams are running the power unit.
The 4th day of the 1st pre-season test will commence at 08:00 GMT (13:00 PKT) on February 21st.
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