Barcelona I, day 4: Räikkönen on top as first pre-season F1 test ends

As team-mate Sebastian Vettel had done on Tuesday, Räikkönen bolted on a set of Pirelli’s ultrasoft tyre just before the lunch break and the Finn quickly jumped to the top of the time sheet. His best time of the day was a 1:23.477, which put him 0.816 clear of Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat, who also scored his best time on the purple-banded ultrasoft. Third place in the session went to Force India’s Alfonso Celis who used the supersoft tyre to post a best time of 1:24.840.

Räikkönen’s final day in the Ferrari this week wasn’t without its problems, however. Having posted his benchmark, the Finn returned to the garage for the lunch break. Following the break he failed to emerge for three hours, only returning to the fray with a little less than an hour on the clock. Having completed 58 laps in the morning, the 2007 champion was only able to add 22 more in the afternoon.

His woes were not as great as McLaren’s, however. After a bright start to this week’s test with over 200 laps completed on the first two days, Jenson Button was yesterday sidelined by a hydraulic leak. But while Button was able to get through 51 laps yesterday before the problem halted his running, Fernando Alonso today managed just three untimed laps before a coolant leak put an end to any further running as the team spent the remainder of the day addressing the issue.

After being hampered by technical glitches over the middle two days of the test, Red Bull Racing ran without issue today, with Kvyat getting through 96 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on his way to P2 in the session.

Force India’s VJM09 has looked impressive all week and Alfonso Celis rounded off a good outing for the Silverstone-based squad by completing 75 laps and setting a lap 1:24.840. The Mexican driver was on the supersoft tyre, as regular driver Nico Hulkenberg had been yesterday when he topped the times. Celis’ time was, however, 1.7s off Hulkenberg’s Wednesday benchmark.

Fourth place in the session went to Renault’s Kevin Magnussen, who logged a lap of 1:25.263 on the soft Pirelli tyre. The Dane also completed the largest single-driver lap total for the day with 153 laps. After a week of reliability issues, Magnussen’s looked like putting in a faultless day’s work for the Enstone squad, but in the final 20 minutes of the session his car ground to a halt at Turn 3.

Max Verstappen was fifth quickest, using the medium tyres on his Toro Rosso, while Sauber’s Felipe Nasr ended the day in sixth place. Both drivers recorded large lap counts for their teams – 110 and 121 respectively – but their totals were dwarfed by Mercedes, who once again enjoyed a marathon outing.

In the morning Lewis Hamilton completed 99 laps, while in the afternoon Nico Rosberg added 86 more, for a massive total of 185 tours. Once again, both ran just the medium tyre with Rosberg ending the day seventh and Hamilton 0.1s down, in eighth place.

Williams’ Felipe Massa was ninth, while Haas’ Esteban Gutiérrez was tenth. The US-based team was forced to end its running early when Gutiérrez stop on track in the afternoon, bringing out the red flags.

Manor’s Rio Haryanto was the final timed driver with a soft tyre lap of 1:28.266. The Indonesian missed the final hours of the session, however, after crashing out at Turn 4.