Bottas tops leaderboard in-season test Bahrain

Published on 19 April 2017 by Mike Motilall

Valtteri Bottas topped the leaderboard during the second and final day of in-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit. The Finn was some three tenths of a second up on Sebastian Vettel with a 1:31.280. The Mercedes-driver completed no less than 143 laps, making him the most prolific driver of the day.

Apart from Bottas, Gary Paffett, the experienced test driver, was the next to also round up over 100 laps today. The 36-year-old Brit was given a chance to climb on board at Williams. At the end of the day, he lapped the track no less than 126 times while clocking the eighth fastest time.

McLaren finally has a reason to be somewhat happy today. After a horrible race-weekend and an equally disastrous first day of in-season testing, Stoffel Vandoorne had a day without any hitches and racks up an astonishing 81 laps.

At Red Bull Racing, where junior-driver Pierre Gasly was allowed to take control of the RB13, a productive morning session is followed by quite some delay after lunch. Only at almost the end of the day, the Frenchman was able to leave the pit box. He then does a total of 65 laps, putting him in tenth on the leaderboard.

The only team that has managed to do even fewer laps than Red Bull Racing is Ferrari. Sebastian Vettel had a very troublesome morning session, during which he only lapped the circuit eight times. In the afternoon, things get better and at the end of the day he has 65 laps to his name and it’s P2 for the German as well.

Now that the in-season test in Bahrain has been wrapped up, the teams can start preparing themselves for the Russian Grand Prix, due in a week and a half on the track in Sochi. After the Hungarian Grand Prix, the second and final in-season test will be on the agenda.