Ferrari and Mercedes completed a two-day Pirelli tyre test for the 2019 Formula 1 season at France’s Paul Ricard circuit.
After the wet tyre test undertaken by McLaren’s Lando Norris earlier in September, the Italian manufacturer were back at Paul Ricard for another round of testing – this time it was the dry weather Pirelli tyres for the 2019 season.
At hand were Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes, while the 2019 recruit Charles Leclerc joined his future teammate Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari. The Monegasque ran on Thursday with Vettel taking over on Friday.
Leclerc completed a total of 129 laps on Day 1 on his second time in the 2018 Ferrari car after undertaking a filming day earlier this year in July at Monza. Bottas did 102 laps in his run on the first day.
On Day 2, Vettel did 121 laps in all with Bottas doing 112. The total lap thus completed in the two day of running came to be 464 with Mercedes doing 214 laps and Ferrari with Leclerc and Vettel completing 250.
Even though it is only testing with not much data on what the tyres they were running, it serves as a valuable experience for any driver to drive the current-spec car in such tests. For Leclerc, this comes as a handy run ahead of his Ferrari debut in 2019.
Only two tests remain in the 2018 season with the next slick tyres test to take place after the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on October 9-10 with Renault scheduled to participate.