Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen ended the penultimate day of the second test in Barcelona on top of the time sheets.
Raikkonen set his fastest time of 1:22.765 in the morning session using Pirelli’s Ultra Soft Compound tyre. But before that, Ferrari trailed the “Halo” head protection that the FIA hope to get on the cars by 2017.
Raikkonen’s reaction to the new device was classic Kimi. “A little bit limited in the front, but I don’t think it’s the final version. Surprisingly little difference.”
There were mixed reactions from the drivers and from fans across social media. Some are all for it and were very complimentary while others mocked the looks and questioned the practicality of it.
The halo head protection being tested by Kimi. It does look like it restricts his view somewhat #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/ogi2GGTEYR
— F1 Madness (@F1_Madness) March 3, 2016
The Williams of Felipe Massa was second fastest on the day about 0.5s slower than Raikkonen. Hulkenberg was 3rd fastest for Force India with Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen was 4th fastest. Verstappen completed the day with the highest lap count of 159 laps.
Nico Rosberg was at the wheel of the Mercedes W07 in the morning working on car setup while team mate Lewis Hamilton took over in the afternoon. Between the Mercedes pair, they clocked up a total of 144 laps on the day with Rosberg ending the day 5th fastest and Hamilton 11th fastest.
Felipe Nasr finished his day 6th fastest ahead of Mclaren’s Fernando Alonso in 7th with 118 laps. Pascal Wehrlein and Daniil Kvyat were 8th and 9th respectively with Jolyon Palmer 10th for Renault.
After turbo troubles on Wednesday the Haas F1 team aimed for a complete race simulation on Thursday. Things did not go according to plan for the Kannapolis based team. Romain Grosjean Brought out the red flag three times on Thursday. The first time he went off at Turn 4 in the morning session and again at Turn 1 in the afternoon. He managed to avoid the barriers and the team was able to get him back out on track. With 5mins left in the session, Grosjean once again brought out the red flags stopping out on track. Despite the troubles Grosjean racked up 78 laps.
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 |