Alfa Romeo Racing’s reserve Robert Kubica set the quickest lap on the first day of F1’s final week of 2020 pre-season testing at the Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.
The Pole was 0.405 seconds faster than Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen who was second on the time-sheets and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez who rounded out the top three in a session cut-short following the former’s late spin.
Every driver apart from Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi ran on the fourth day of testing at Montmelo, as Haas gave Romain Grosjean the full day and the aforementioned Alfa reserve Kubica behind the wheel of the C39 in the morning session.
It was Kubica’s benchmark of a 1:16.942 on the C5 red side-walled Pirelli P-Zero soft compound that gave him the lead while second-placed Verstappen, quickest of the afternoon runners, posted his hot lap on a set of harder C3’s.
Verstappen spun and his Honda-powered RB16 racer stopped on track with five minutes remaining, bringing out the third and final red flag of the day.
Perez was 0.081 seconds adrift of the Dutchman having posted his best effort 25 minutes before the end in his Racing Point entry, showing the Mercedes-powered RP20’s impressive early pace, with 84 laps clocked up before Verstappen brought out the red flag.
Scuderia AlphaTauri pairing Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly finished the day fourth and fifth respectively, with the former stopping his AT01 racer at the same exact time as Verstappen did, with both drivers supposedly running out of fuel.
Gasly missed three hours of running in the morning with the car kept in the team garage, before handing it over to team-mate Kvyat, but the Frenchman still managed to hold fifth.
The last Honda-powered entry of Alexander Albon completed 29 laps in his Red Bull Racing RB16 during the morning session to finish in sixth place on the time-sheets.
Reigning Champion Lewis Hamilton was seventh quickest in his Mercedes F1 W11 EQ Power+, 0.620 seconds adrift of Kubica’s benchmark with 89 laps run whilst team-mate Valtteri Bottas was ninth-fastest after taking over in the afternoon, reaching 90 laps to give the Silver Arrows the highest lap count at the end of the day.
The Constructors Champions did setup work on longer pace runs alongside gathering aerodynamic data and testing new aero components in the morning with Hamilton while in the afternoon, Bottas followed a similar testing programme on car setup, aerodynamic data collection and correlation work.
BWT Racing Point F1 Team’s Lance Stroll split the Mercedes duo in eighth place after briefly holding the best time during the morning, but a sensor issue forced the Canadian to not get the full programme done in the morning.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel gave the Maranello-based squad it’s fastest lap of pre-season testing so far, but completed the top ten and 1.171 seconds off of Kubica’s time – with the team continuing it’s steady testing programme. Team-mate Charles Leclerc was 13th and a tenth down on the German. Vettel also brought out the second red flag of the day after spinning in what was a largely uninterrupted day of running.
Both Vettel and Leclerc tested the prototype C2 Pirelli tyre, which was designed specifically for this year’s Dutch Grand Prix at the returning Zandvoort, with all teams able to try it. Vettel in the morning also used the standard C2 compound to further assess the SF1000’s potential while in the afternoon undertook aerodynamic work and long runs before running the C3’s in the final hour of the day.
Renault F1 Team’s Daniel Ricciardo took 11th, clocking up 53 laps on the charts and posted a 1:18.214 and only seven-thousandths quicker than 12th-placed McLaren of Carlos Sainz who completed 46 laps in the MCL35.
The ROKiT Williams Racing pairing of Nicholas Latifi and George Russell followed in 14th and 15th on the time-sheets respectively as the former’s on-track stoppage in the morning session was shrugged off by the latter in the afternoon. Russell finish a tenth behind his rookie team-mate as Grove-based outfit completed 106 laps in total – one lap off Grosjean, who racked up 107 laps on his own, taking the 16th quick time of the day for Haas.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was 17th and Renault’s Esteban Ocon brought up the rear with 56 laps achieved by the former and 74 by the latter.
Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen split the two in 18th, with the Finn focusing on long runs to hit 51 laps and testing different setup options.
F1 2020 Pre-Season Testing Week 2 – Day 1 Results Classification
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You can catch up on all the days action of Formula 1 Pre-Season Testing Week 2 – Day 1 at the following link: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.f1-highlights-watch-all-the-action-from-the-first-day-of-pre-season-testing.3sFike3VeN6C8u9W7tXmql.html
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