Lance Stroll, Racing Point, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Lap time watch: 2019 F1 testing day five

2019 F1 season

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The 2019 F1 cars have not yet beaten the fastest time from last year’s pre-season test, but seven of the 10 teams have now lapped quicker than they managed 12 months ago.

Ferrari’s 1’17.182 from last year is still quicker than anyone has managed so far this season. Ferrari is one of just three teams yet to improve on their 2018 bests, the others being Haas and Williams, though the latter has gone quicker than it did during last year’s race weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Racing Point made a significant jump in pace on the first day of the second test. Lance Stroll significantly reduced the team’s best lap time, and their year-on-year gain in testing is now better than anyone’s apart from Alfa Romeo. Stroll described today as “our smoothest day of testing so far”, adding “I think we are heading in the right direction.”

Pierre Gasly also improved Red Bull’s time today but intriguingly he did it on the C3 compound, which is around six-tenths per lap slower than the C4 and the same again to the C5. That indicates the Red Bull is capable of a considerably quicker lap time, as of course are Ferrari and Haas as well.

Mercedes lost much of the afternoon’s running on day five of the test due to a power unit problem on Valtteri Bottas’s W10. Ferrari has now covered the most mileage of any team, while the Mercedes customer squads are propping up the table.

PositionTeamModelTimeGapTyre
1RenaultRS191’17.393C5
2Toro RossoSTR141’17.6370.244C5
3McLarenMCL341’17.7090.316C4
4Red BullRB151’17.7150.322C3
5Alfa RomeoC381’17.7620.369C5
6Racing PointRP191’17.8240.431C5
7MercedesW101’17.8570.464C5
8FerrariSF901’17.9250.532C3
9HaasVF-191’18.5631.170C3
10WilliamsFW421’19.6622.269C5

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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12 comments on “Lap time watch: 2019 F1 testing day five”

  1. It seems that the wider wing did not create the massive decline in laptime. Teams have found other ways to recover the downforce.
    This makes me quietly hope that it will improve the ability to follow in the turns.

    1. Strange logic !

      1. What @coldfly says makes complete sense: the negative impact of the new front wings, i.e. making the cars slower, has been negated through implementing solutions on other parts of the car. Yet the touted positive part, i.e. being able to follow other cars easier, seems to still apply, despite the negation of the slowing down of the cars.

      2. Not sure which part you find strange, @hohum.

        The whole purpose of reducing outwash was to aid overtaking.
        Check this article from last April by @keithcollantine.

        1. @coldfly, your glass must be eternally more than half full, I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I see no link between unchanged or improved lap times and the ability to follow closely through bends.

    2. @coldfly I think ‘increase’ and or ‘rise’ would be a more precise word to refer to lap times becoming slower than ‘decline,’ but nevertheless, I thoroughly agree with you otherwise except that it wasn’t the width of the front wing, but the simplification of it that was expected to make the lap times slower.

      1. good point, @jerejj, thanks.
        Missed that, even when re-reading.

  2. It seems like most teams will substantially increase their testing mileage, relative to last year.

    1. @ironcito, mind you, given the freakish weather conditions that hit the test sessions last year, that is probably not too surprising – it might be worth comparing with the 2017 pre-season tests for a more representative picture.

      @coldfly, I believe that Magnussen is now on record as saying that he feels that the new regulations have made the cars more stable when following another car – however, he does caveat that by noting that, at the time, he was lapping quite a bit faster than the car he was following. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kevin-magnussen-new-haas-aero-rules/4344314/

  3. I hope you compiled all eight days testing graph in a single GIF later, @keithcollantine. But please add different colour/shading for any team that manage to beat last year record. I’d like to see a Honda’s bar blip in it.

  4. Has anyone got a full lap time chart. Would really like to have a look at the long run times

  5. Motorsport.com have Danny Ric posting his fastest time on the C2. Who is correct?

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