Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

Mercedes beat 2019 benchmark as Ferrari hit engine trouble

2020 F1 season

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Mercedes left their rivals far behind on the morning of the third day of pre-season testing.

[f1tv2020testa]With all nine of their rivals yet to lap the Circuit de Catalunya in under 77 seconds, Valtteri Bottas lowered Mercedes’ best time to 1’15.732.

His effort in the W11 was almost half a second faster than the team lapped in pre-season testing last year.

Four other teams set their best time of the test so far today, led by Esteban Ocon in second place for Renault, albeit 1.37 seconds slower than Bottas. Lance Stroll, Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean all produced the best times for their teams so far, though Haas remain down in eighth.

Max Verstappen was the busiest driver of all, covering 84 laps, despite losing time when he was forced to pit after damaging his Red Bull on a kerb at turn seven.

The first of two interruptions in the running was caused by Sebastian Vettel, whose Ferrari came to a stop towards the end of the lap. Though there were no outwards indications of what had gone wrong with the car, Ferrari later confirmed an engine fault was to blame. The power unit has been sent back to Maranello, and a new unit is being fitted to the SF1000.

Nicholas Latifi caused the other red flag of the day when the Williams driver stopped after leaving the pits. His car was quickly recovered and he rejoined the track soon afterwards.

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2020 pre-season testing day three morning lap times

Pos.Car numberDriverTeamModelBest timeGapLaps
177Valtteri BottasMercedesW111’15.73265
231Esteban OconRenaultRS201’17.1021.37076
318Lance StrollRacing PointRP201’17.3381.60652
426Daniil KvyatAlphaTauriAT011’17.4271.69560
533Max VerstappenRed BullRB161’17.6361.90485
699Antonio GiovinazziAlfa RomeoC391’18.0352.30365
755Carlos Sainz JnrMcLarenMCL351’18.2742.54273
88Romain GrosjeanHaasVF-201’18.3802.64848
95Sebastian VettelFerrariSF10001’18.3842.65240
106Nicholas LatifiWilliamsFW431’19.0043.27244

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2020 F1 season

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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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11 comments on “Mercedes beat 2019 benchmark as Ferrari hit engine trouble”

  1. Ferrari will be worried, they’ve hardly pushed their car this week and it’s the second the fail, the other being the RB Honda, which has been doing plenty of fast laps. Could Ferrari struggle to get 3 engines to last the whole season?

  2. Can Ferrari have all their fails in the Practise these days? and none in the championship races? that would had been great for sure.

    1. That is wishful thinking at best. That team will always find a way to screw itself.

      1. They will always find a way indeed.

  3. And only three tenths off the last Spanish GP-pole time, so not bad at this point.

  4. Ferrari always find a way to disappoint. Besides the DAS, something I read somewhere else RB is complaining about, Mercedes make any Ferrari’s fault look bigger. I don’t know the math for the next year, a war between accountants for sure. Binotto must be replaced immediately, along with Vettel. Both can’t find a way to win. Schumacher’s days made me root for Ferrari, now it seems clear that his heritage is Mercedes. The only way out for Ferrari is start developing the car for 2021, concede 2020 to Lewis. Let him celebrate, recognize his talent and focus on winning. Vettel is done, he is not reliable. Give a call to Alonso, he’s pure drama and media, but he can point the faults. Corporate mind games results in corporate mediocre results. Everybody happy and no wins. The only interesting thing to see this year is Bottas vs Lewis and Verstappen vs Leclerc. Battle for first and second.

    1. It was Brawn and Todts heritage of shielding engineers from management, and Italian press. Brawns work ethic seems to have been retained by Toto Wolff while team Red have scrambled itself.

      1. All of this further confirms that F1 is a Team Sport.
        Yes, it is about entertainment and you must admit, at every twist turn, this season is looking like First Class “Entertainment”.
        Drivers competing, teams competing, management threatening and fractious competition within some teams. Gotta-luv it.

        1. This is going to be Great.

  5. I disagree with people saying Binotto needs to be replaced. Part of Ferrari’s problem for the last 6-7 years has been the lack of stable leadership. Not the only problem, certainly, but a major contributor.

    I trust Binotto’s cool head and steady hand. It’s only week one of testing – let’s see how the team is doing after Melbourne and Bahrain before we write off their season.

  6. Wonder why they still keep Newey, Horner and Marko at RBR, they obviously failed big time.

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