Formula testing Day 4 in Barcelona threw up some interesting results as Kimi Raikkonen topped the charts in a Ferrari and Daniil Kvyat followed in at second for Red Bull along with Afonso Celis, the Force India test driver came in third.
Kimi Raikkonen
“I don’t know if this is going to be a good car,” Raikkonen said. “No one can tell, but it seems to be a good car even if there are still many things to try out. We don’t look at what the other teams do, we do our stuff and get ready. It’s up to us to make sure we are in a good position. There is a good potential but we can still improve.”
Renault works team had a particularly good day in office as they managed to get in 153 laps in the day; more than anybody else on the grid. Kevin Magnussen was behind the wheel for the second consecutive day for Renault. Max Verstappen came in sixth with 2015 Ferrari engine powered Torro Rosso, managing a decent 110 laps. Felipe Nasr, still using 2015 Sauber car was 2.5 seconds of the pace setter while clocking in 121 laps. Surprisingly, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had a go but were 2.7 and 2.8 seconds adrift of Raikkonen respectively after managing a combined 185 laps on medium compound tyres.
The struggles continue for Fernando Alonso in McLaren Honda
Felipe Massa came in eight in the Williams Martini Racing while managing 54 laps followed by Esteban Gutierrez for Haas who managed 89 laps. It was not so great last day for last years back markers Manor and McLaren; Rio Haryanto crashed for Manor and Alonso was unable to test after a coolant leakage at a tricky place meant the car couldn’t leave the garage for the entire day, thus unable to set a timed lap.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps 1 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m23.477s - 80 2 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull/TAG Heuer 1m24.293s 0.816s 96 3 Alfonso Celis Force India/Mercedes 1m24.840s 1.363s 75 4 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1m25.263s 1.786s 153 5 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso/Ferrari 1m25.393s 1.916s 110 6 Felipe Nasr Sauber/Ferrari 1m26.053s 2.576s 121 7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m26.187s 2.710s 86 8 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m26.295s 2.818s 99 9 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m26.483s 3.006s 54 10 Esteban Gutierrez Haas/Ferrari 1m27.802s 4.325s 89 11 Rio Haryanto Manor/Mercedes 1m28.266s 4.789s 51 - Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda - - 3