McLaren headed the timing screens for the second day in a row at the Circuit de Catalunya as Carlos Sainz Jnr set the quickest lap of testing so far.
Sainz’s best effort of 1’17.144, set on the C4 compound rubber, stood as the best of the day. He also covered well over 100 laps, despite triggering a red flag at one stage when his MCL34 lost water pressure.Sergio Perez set the second-quickest time of the day for Racing Point. He moved up to second place late in the afternoon with a time just 18 thousandths of a second shy of team mate Lance Stroll’s benchmark time in the RP19.
Ferrari’s day was defined by the crash Sebastian Vettel suffered at turn three on his 40th lap. He reported a problem at the front-left of the car, but the corner suffered heavy damage when he crashed into the TecPro barriers. After lengthy repairs and investigations Ferrari eventually sent Charles Leclerc out to check the car over again with just seven minutes to spare.
Racing Point and Ferrari were the only teams to cover less than 100 laps on a busy day’s testing. It was brought to an early end when Kimi Raikkonen caused a red flag in the final minutes. He ended the session fourth ahead of Romain Grosjean.
Max Verstappen was sixth-quickest on a day which included a full race simulation including pit stops for the Red Bull driver. He also caused a red flag when his car stopped in the morning and had a brief spin.
While Ferrari spent most of the day in the garage, Mercedes enjoyed their second-busiest day of the test. Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton covered 176 laps between them.
Robert Kubica’s Williams placed 11th, but set its quickest time of test so far with a lap of 1’19.367.
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2019 pre-season test day six lap times
| Pos. | Car number | Driver | Team | Model | Best time | Gap | Laps | Tyres |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | McLaren | MCL34 | 1’17.144 | 130 | C4 | |
| 2 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point | RP19 | 1’17.842 | 0.698 | 88 | C5 |
| 3 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | SF90 | 1’18.195 | 1.051 | 40 | C3 |
| 4 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo | C38 | 1’18.209 | 1.065 | 113 | C4 |
| 5 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | VF-19 | 1’18.330 | 1.186 | 120 | C5 |
| 6 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | RB15 | 1’18.395 | 1.251 | 128 | C3 |
| 7 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | STR14 | 1’18.682 | 1.538 | 101 | C4 |
| 8 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | W10 | 1’18.941 | 1.797 | 74 | C3 |
| 9 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | W10 | 1’18.943 | 1.799 | 102 | C3 |
| 10 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | RS19 | 1’19.056 | 1.912 | 58 | C3 |
| 11 | 88 | Robert Kubica | Williams | FW42 | 1’19.367 | 2.223 | 130 | C5 |
| 12 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | RS19 | 1’22.597 | 5.453 | 72 | C1 |
| 13 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | SF90 | No time | 1 |
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MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
27th February 2019, 17:10
Don’t read too much into testing… but am I the only one really excited for the season by the results so far?
Everyone is more reliable and closer overall?
Jason Blankenship (@jblank)
27th February 2019, 18:08
Mercedes is sandbagging. I would love a competitive season that doesn’t involve Hamilton and Mercedes winning AGAIN, but I don’t see it happening.
Trido (@)
27th February 2019, 17:12
Good day for McLaren. Around 6 tenths faster than they were in last years qualifying and only 3 tenths off RBR’s time. They are still a ways back, but they have made some good strides.
Stephen Gary McCarthy
27th February 2019, 18:16
Wouldn’t it be just typical if just after Alonso leaves they finally produce a competitive car, Aside from his Renault days, Fernando generally did not carry much good fortune with him.
Lauri (@f1lauri)
27th February 2019, 17:24
I hope Williams is not the slowest…
Gavin Campbell
27th February 2019, 17:30
Sainz’s time is slightly quicker than the fastest time in testing last year and set on harder tyres. (Last year was a 1:17.182 on Hyper Softs from Ferrari) So glory run or not that appears to be decent pace from the orange machine.
They are unlikely to get down to quali times from last year at the test as well (temperature is lower, probably won’t run max engine modes at least until the very last day) So I know it’s ONLY testing – but my eyebrow has been raised.
Ryan
27th February 2019, 17:38
There’s no point mentioning last years qualifying times. Tyres at the Spanish GP were Supers, Soft & Medium, so qualifying was done on Supersofts which don’t exist anymore. Comparing Alonsos 1.17.7 qualifying time to Sainz 1.17.1 testing time serves no purpose as Pirelli compared the C4’s to the Ultrasofts of last year. So not only is there the track evolution there is also an offset in tyre compounds.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
27th February 2019, 20:14
Nearly 300 laps for Renault across the first 2 days, good showing. Hope they get to turn the engine up now.
If they can end testing on a high as they did last week it might just give me a pinch of hope. As it stands seven tenths behind Red Bull sounds sadly all too correct :(
They’re being very quiet.