The final week of pre-season testing before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix has come to an end with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel topping the time-sheets on the last day ahead of Lewis Hamilton by just 0.003 seconds.

 

Vettel spent the morning half of the session working on car setup and in the afternoon several series of long paced runs with 110 laps on the board and the benchmark time of a 1:16.221. However, an electrical issue forced the German to end their final test before Melbourne pre-maturely.

 

Ferrari’s Team Principal and Managing Director Mattia Binotto talked to the press and said: “These past days have been very intensive and interesting. We are still focusing on our car to understand its limits in terms of performance and reliability,”

 

“Overall, I am pleased with the work we have carried out,” he added. “I am pleased with how the car behaves and it was well balanced at this track.”

 

“However, we cannot be completely satisfied at the moment as we would like to be faster and more reliable. So there’s still a lot to do. Our programme didn’t always run as smoothly as we would have liked, due to reliability issues and Sebastian’s crash when a wheel rim broke. There are still many issues to be addressed and we must push forward on the performance front. The fact that our car is running properly is a good starting point, but we are still not ready for Melbourne and I’d say it’s a case of a work in progress.”

 

On the drivers’ comparisons themselves: “Both drivers set very similar lap times. We already knew that Charles is a very fast driver, as we have seen throughout his years with the Ferrari Driver Academy and last season in Formula 1. As for Sebastian, his performance shows him to be the multi-world champion we already know.” Binotto concluded.

 

 

Hamilton finished his final test just narrowly behind rival Vettel in second place on the time-sheets, with the reigning World Champion focusing on qualifying simulations, testing various tyre compounds and gathering aerodynamic data on the Mercedes W10.

 

“The last couple of days have been very positive: it felt like the changes we were making helped us progress and gave us clear feedback of when we were moving in the right or the wrong direction,” explained Hamilton reflecting on the final week of testing. “Today, it was nice to feel the car on lighter fuel and to discover it a little better; I really enjoyed the day and got a good feel for the tyres as well.”

 

“I’m not the biggest fan of testing, as everybody knows, but it has been a positive week overall. Even so, there is still a lot to do and we are not there yet; there are lots of areas that we are working on and we are heading in the right direction.” Hamilton concluded.

 

 

The Briton’s Silver Arrows team-mate Valtteri Bottas completed the top three with the Finn’s final programme before Melbourne consisting of qualifying simulations and aerodynamic data gathering. Bottas completed 71 laps in mileage and was 0.340 seconds off of Vettel’s quick time.

 

“That’s the final day of testing done, next time we’ll drive the W10, it will be in Melbourne,” said Bottas. “We’ve used our time on track here in Barcelona efficiently, learning a lot and improving our performance over the past two weeks.”

 

“We’ve also learned that the competition is going to be very, very tough this year, but we’re looking forward to the challenge. We need to keep pushing and find more performance if we want to be competitive in Melbourne, but we have a strong team and have made good progress in the last days. We have a few days left to work on the car, so we will give it everything. I’m looking forward to Melbourne!” Bottas concluded.

 

 

Renault F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg was fourth on the time-sheets in his final test before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The German racked up 51 laps on the mileage charts and set a 1:16.843.

 

“I leave Barcelona feeling encouraged after a busy eight days in the car,” explained Hulkenberg reflecting on the week. “We’ve made good progress as a team from last year in particular on the power unit.”

 

“Our reliability has been decent, we had a few small issues here and there, but the team dealt with anything like that quite well and still managed a high lap count. We know the competition is extremely tight, but we only want to focus on ourselves. We head to Melbourne feeling relatively confident, but in the meantime, we have a lot of analysis to look at to ensure we maximise the potential from the car.” Hulkenberg concluded.

 

 

Daniil Kvyat completed his final test outing for Toro Rosso in fifth place on the time-sheets, with the Russian focusing on qualifying and simulations in both the morning and afternoon sessions. He clocked up 131 laps in mileage and set a 1:16.898.

 

“We’ve had quite a successful pre-season test,” said Kvyat summing up testing. “We were able to complete many laps, so I think we can be satisfied with the work put into these past two weeks.”

 

“We did our homework between the two tests which is important, and that resulted in the car being comfortable to drive by the end of the second week. We tried some new bits and different setup approaches to see how the car would react as it’s testing, because trying this during a race weekend would be too risky and time consuming,”

 

“We evaluated these items and found solutions to make the car as quick as it could be, so I would say we made the most out of winter testing. Today we did some short runs and qualifying simulations in the morning, while in the afternoon we moved to a race simulation. Both went quite well, so now we can focus our attention to the start of the season in Melbourne.” Kvyat concluded.

 

 

McLaren’s Carlos Sainz followed in sixth place as the Spaniard completed a final productive day for the Woking-based outfit. A huge 134 laps was achieved on the mileage charts (the most of all in today’s running) with the testing day programme including aero evaluation, qualifying and race simulations along with pit-stop practice.

 

“It’s always nice to go to Australia finishing the test on a bit of a high, having covered a lot of mileage – the most for me in all four days of testing,” explained a satisfied Sainz. “I also finished my first race simulation without any issues, and did some performance runs in the morning which were useful for our understanding of the car.”

 

“Now I’ll go back to the factory to do some final work with the team so we can feel fully prepared before the first race. We’ve been very focussed on our own preparation and performance, so it’s impossible to tell exactly how that compares to our competitors,”

 

“Thank you to the team for their hard work over the past two weeks, and now we look forward to getting the season properly started.” Sainz concluded.

 

 

Romain Grosjean finished his final test in seventh place on the time-sheets for Rich Energy Haas F1 Team. The Frenchman had a productive morning doing 73 laps in the VF-19 and running the C5 softest tyre to set the 1:17.076.

 

“It’s been a good morning,” said Grosjean. “We ran our full program, which is very positive.”

 

“We’re finding a bit more time in the car, run-after-run, which is great. I’m generally very happy with winter testing to-date. Maybe we’ve had a few more issues than we’d have liked, but if we react well and sort them out, there are many things we’ve ticked in the box. I think we’re ready for Melbourne, I’m looking forward to getting there.” Grosjean concluded.

 

 

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo ended the final day of pre-season testing in eighth place as the Australian ran a total of 52 laps and was impressed with how testing has gone.

 

“It’s been a pretty good week and we’ve done a decent amount of laps with some consistent running,” explained Ricciardo. “It will take some time to catch the front teams but that is not what we expected to happen at winter testing and we are very realistic about that.”

 

“At the same time, it’s impossible to make accurate performance predictions. We still have work to do and things to improve on and that’s what we’ll focus on now,”

 

“We will dissect the data we’ve harnessed over the past days back at the factory. We are making progress but the bigger steps will happen gradually going forward. I’m heading to Melbourne feeling that I belong here and I just want to go racing now!” Ricciardo concluded.

 

 

Kimi Rakkonen completed his last outing of testing before Melbourne in ninth place for Alfa Romeo Racing with the Finn racking up a huge 132 laps as he put the C38 through it’s paces. However, Raikkonen was not satisfied with where team are.

 

“I don’t think we are where we probably want to be exactly but also the conditions here are different to race weekends because of the cold weather here, and we didn’t really push for best lap time,” explained Raikkonen as he reflected on testing. “Obviously, we tried different tyres, and sure we have things to learn from the tyres as it was a bit tricky to get the lap time out of the softer tyres. We’ll learn here and see what the warm weather hopefully in Australia will changes things.”

 

“For sure we have quite a few things to improve but at least we can go out and fight. We’ll see what we get from the first race and then go from there.” Raikkonen concluded.

 

 

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top ten in the striking VF-19 as the Kannapolis-Banbury outfit focused on timed runs as well as race simulations and pit-stop practices. Magnussen completed 94 laps in total but the day came to a halt as he parked it at turn four. However, the Dane was content with how testing has gone.

 

“Overall, I think it’s been a productive two weeks in Spain, today’s been another good example of that,” explained Magnussen reflecting on pre-season testing as a whole. “From the start the VF-19’s felt good, and I can see how we’ve continued to make progress each day in terms of balance and performance.”

 

“Of course, you never get enough miles in testing, that’s just the way it goes, but I’m happy with what’s been achieved. There’s a lot more work to do before we hit the track in Melbourne, but from my side, I can’t wait to start the season and go racing again.” Magnussen concluded.

 

 

The final pre-season test day for Aston Martin Red Bull Racing was cut short as Max Verstappen’s day ended pre-maturely due to a gearbox issue. The young Dutchman completed a low 29 laps in mileage and finished in eleventh on the time-sheets but the Milton Keynes squad is satisfied with how testing went as a whole.

 

“The guys in the garage did an amazing job to turn the car around after yesterday’s crash and get it on track this morning, but unfortunately we had a gearbox issue and the nature of it meant we had to stop,” explained Verstappen. “I think overall we’ve had a really positive test here. If you look at the longer runs it looks pretty promising. I think we have a good package and the engine works really well, so I’m very happy and I’m looking forward to just going racing now.”

 

 

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team’s Sergio Perez finished a final busy day of testing in twelfth place on the time-sheets with the Silverstone squad focusing heavily on race preparations with long runs. The Mexican racked up 104 laps of mileage and posted a time of 1:17.791.

 

“It’s been a positive final day in the car for me,” said Perez. “We did a lot of work and I think we have a good idea of where we stand with the car.”

 

“Today was about final race preparations with lots of long runs. Every time we go out, we learn more and more and I feel ready for the season ahead. It’s been a long winter and I’m extremely motivated: I can’t wait to go racing again,”

 

“Starting the season with some points would be good, but in the end it’s a long season so we need to get to Melbourne and see how we really compare to the other teams.” Perez concluded.

 

 

Last but not least, Robert Kubica brought up the rear in his final pre-season testing day for ROKiT Williams Racing as the Pole undertook an ambitious programme similar to team-mate George Russell’s. Kubica worked on gathering data in the cooler conditions, performance experiments and qualifying simulations. His planned long run in the afternoon was ended early due to the FW42’s heavily degraded bodywork parts with the Grove-outfit opting to run race procedural practice including stop starts and pit-stops. He completed 90 laps in total.

 

“It is a pity to end testing with a difficult day before we head to the first race,” said Kubica. “Out of the runs that we did, we managed to learn some things, but it hasn’t given me the level of confidence that I would have liked ahead of Australia.”

 

“It wasn’t the day that I was hoping for after the delay to the start of testing, but you have to take the positives out of these difficult situations.” Kubica concluded.

 

Formula 1 2019 Pre-Season Test Two, Day Four Classification