Pierre Gasly predicts lap times will continue to fall at the Circuit de Catalunya and could hit 1’17 when F1 visits the track for the Spanish Grand Prix later this year.
The fastest time in the first test was a 1’19.333 set by Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes. This was just under two-tenths of a second slower than last year’s pole position time at the track.Pirelli’s sporting director Mario Isola indicated he expects lap times will drop to 1’17 and Gasly expects the same.
“Looking at Lewis, he’s already in 1’19, so it will be possible,” he predicted. “Mercedes are really good to hide their potential so I think it’s going to be possible.”
Gasly said Toro Rosso did little performance running in the first week of running at the track making it “too early compare” the performance between teams.
“We didn’t have any qualifying simulations. We didn’t really focus on one-lap performance, it was more like on the long runs and obviously we had quite a lot of fuel in the car. I think we have quite a lot still in the car.”
“Of course they are testing also things on the engine,” he added. “Some of them work, some of them don’t. It’s all about understanding what we need for the first race in Melbourne and I think everyone in the team is doing a good job.”
Cool weather conditions last week also made it harder for drivers to achieve representative lap times.
“We don’t get much degradation which is of course going to be different in May when we’re back for the race,” said Gasly. “There are many things we need to take into account when you test in the winter here but it’s good so far.”
Follow our live updates from the paddock at the Circuit de Catalunya during today’s test here
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Jere (@jerejj)
6th March 2018, 11:33
Same here. I expect that the outright lap record of 1:18.339 to be beaten at some point during this pre-season testing phase if not today then over the next three days.