Kimi Raikkonen dominates fourth test day

Kimi Raikkonen topped the timing-sheets today for the last day of the first week of pre-season testing in Barcelona. The day was mostly devoted to testing Pirelli’s new wet tyres on an artificially wet track.

Since yesterday, Montmélo’s track officials artificially wetted the track in order to allow the drivers to use the new Pirelli’s wet tyres. But despite all their efforts, the track was drying quicker than expected and brought serious degradation to intermediary tyres. In the morning, Kimi Raikkonen set a 1:22.305 laptime ahead of Romain Grosjean and Stoffel Vandoorne. In the afternoon, Raikkonen went quicker again with a 1:20.872 with soft tyres.

The Finnish driver was followed by Max Verstappen who completed 85 laps in accord with the target set by Red Bull. Jolyon Palmer confirmed Renault’s good pace by finishing third, only a few thousandths a drift of Verstappen.

Romain Grosjean and Stoffel Vandoorne suffered slightly more on dry track in the afternoon than in the morning. The Frenchman ended fourth overall whereas the Belgian finished seventh with a best time set with ultra-soft tyres. Let’s note that Grosjean was the most active on track with 118 laps completed.

Antonio Giovinazzi also managed to make the Sauber work and got fifth overall, 1.5s away from his Ferrari teammate with an ultra-soft lap. Sergio Perez was sixth with the Force India ahead of Vandoorne, Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg. Valtteri Bottas had to cover a race simulation as an electronical problem prevented Lewis Hamilton to run in the morning. Daniil Kvyat only set one lap in the morning before again facing engine problems and Williams did not manage to fix their chassis following Stroll’s accident.

The second week of testing will take part from March 7^th to 10^th.

Results: