The all-new Formula 1 cars were on track for the third and final day of testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which has thrown up plenty of obstacles.
It was Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton setting the pace on the final day of testing as he put the fastest time on the board ahead of team mate George Russell and the Red Bull of Sergio Perez with a blistering 1:19.138 – almost half a second quicker than Lando Norris’ previous week-leading time.
In what was a final day of red-flag dominance, Mercedes and Ferrari were the teams who overcame the chaos around them to complete 160 and 136 laps respectively.
Speaking of red flags, El Plan went awry as Fernando Alonso brought out the first red flag. There had already been a ‘moment’ for the Spaniard when he ran wide into the gravel, but worse was to come for the two-time former World Champion. Alonso was asked to stop the car at turn 13 due to a loss of pressure, and that was where he ground to a halt before the session was stopped.
Smoke was seen billowing from the A522 with a team statement later released confirming “A minor sealing issue led to a fire in the back of the car.”
Alonso was not the only one who had run into trouble, as Pierre Gasly came off the track in the middle sector after hitting a barrier.
Rookie Guanyu Zhou also went off in the final sector, and they were all joined by Sebastian Vettel, whose Aston Martin AMR2 suffered an oil leak, causing the German to stop on track shortly before lunch.
While a lot of the teams put in some pretty decent laps, AlphaTauri, Alpine, Aston Marton and Haas were not able to run in the afternoon session of testing on the final day, and Alfa can’t boast much more in terms of laps, managing just 10 with Bottas since the last interval. This will cause for some teams to be on the back foot come testing in Bahrain on 10 March, and they will have a lot of catch-up to do.
So, that’s three exciting days of testing done and dusted in Barcelona. Three days of action, plenty of positives, a few negatives for some teams, some reliability woes, but mostly, the teams were phenomenal considering how sweeping the rule changes have been and how different the cars are.
Now we can all look forward to Bahrain on the 10th of March for some more testing, which will be televised (YAY!), and then the countdown will be well and truly on for the first race of the year. It is going to be a long season, there are guaranteed ups and downs, but it is certainly going to be an exciting one, NOT TO BE MISSED!
LEADERBOARD
- Hamilton, Mercedes, 1m19.138s, C5 – 94 laps
- Russell, Mercedes, 1m19.233s, C5 – 66 laps
- Perez, Red Bull, 1m19.556s, C4 – 74 laps
- Verstappen, Red Bull, 1m19.756s, C3 – 59 laps
- Vettel, Aston Martin, 1m19.824s, C5 – 48 laps
- Leclerc, Ferrari, 1m19.831s, C3 – 44 laps
- Sainz, Ferrari, 1m20.072s, C3 – 92 laps
- Albon, Williams, 1m20.318, C4 – 94 laps
- Latifi, Williams, 1m20.699s, C4 – 13 laps
- Ricciardo, McLaren, 1m20.750, C3 – 86 laps
- Norris, McLaren, 1m20.827s, C3 – 52 laps
- Alonso, Alpine, 1m21.242s, C3 – 12 laps
- Zhou, Alfa Romeo, 1m21.939s, C3 – 41 laps
- Gasly, AlphaTauri, 1m22.469s, C4 – 40 laps
- Mazepin, Haas, 1m26.229s, C3 – 9 laps
- Bottas, Alfa Romeo, 1m30.433s, C3 – 10 laps