Max in the top three: “Not focusing on fast times yet”
Published on 03 March 2016 by Mike Motilall
During the morning session of the third day of testing in Barcelona, Kimi Raikkonen clocked the fastest time. The Finn did a 1:22.765 on the ultra-soft tyres, faster than Nico Hülkenberg, who came in second in his Force India. Max Verstappen, once again, had a flawless session during which he noted a 1:23.382, which put him third. The youngster lapped the circuit 59 times and clocked his fastest lap on the ultra-soft tyre.
Max, who has by now tried out all the different tyres available, talks to Verstappen.nl during his lunchbreak. “It is nice to experience how much grip you have and get a feel for the tyres. I am pretty happy about that. We are making progress and are getting the set-up just where we want it. That is most important. We are not focusing yet on fast laptimes. In general, I have had a good morning”, Max concludes. He also mentioned that the ultra-softs are actually too soft for Barcelona.
The day started with a novelty. The cockpit of Raikkonen’s Ferrari was mounted with a ‘halo’ for the very first time. The system is put in place to offer more protection to the driver’s head. It is expected that a system like this will be mandatory from 2017 onwards. Ferrari was asked to do the experiment at the request of the FIA. Afterwards, Raikkonen informed that visibility was good, despite the fact that the support of the system was right in front of the driver’s nose.
The morning session is quite normal for most of the teams, they practice pit stops and front wings are changed. Haas F1-team, with Romain Grosjean at the helm this time, achieve an encouraging amount of laps, after having had a disastrous session on Wednesday.
Just before noon, Max makes to the track for the first time on the super-softs. Some minutes later, he returns to the team after having done a 1:23.650, putting him second on the time sheet.
In the final hour of the session, we see Hülkenberg pass Max. The German has also been given the ultra-softs. Raikkonen settles down and does a 1:22.765 on the ultra’s which puts him more than half a second up on the rest.
With little over half an hour to go before lunch, Max heads out again on the super-softs, and manages to improve his time once more. His time, 1:23.626, is the fastest on the super-softs. Both Raikkonen and Hülkenberg did their fastest times on the ultra-softs.
Moments later, Max gets strapped on to the ultra-softs on the STR11. He is fast again and with a 1:23.382 he takes off almost three tenths off of his time.
With still some minutes remaining, Grosjean causes a code red in turn four. Luckily, no harm is done as the Frenchman is able to keep his car out of the barriers.
Looking at the amount of laps at the end of the session, we see the Mercedes team once more, with 81 laps, taking the cake. Red Bull follows with 62 laps.
Pre-season test II, day 3 - Circuit de Catalunya – Thursday 3 March 2016
1. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:22.765 41 2. Hülkenberg Force India 1:23.251 +0.486 49 3. Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:23.382 +0.617 59 4. Rosberg Mercedes 1:24.126 +1.361 81 5. Nasr Sauber 1:24.760 +1.995 37 6. Alonso McLaren 1:24.870 +2.105 57 7. Kvyat Red Bull Racing 1:25.141 +2.376 62 8. Massa Williams 1:25.420 +2.655 46 9. Palmer Renault 1:27.182 +4.417 26 10. Grosjean Haas F1 1:28.110 +5.345 59 11. Wehrlein Manor F1 1:28.476 +5.711 19
