Barcelona I, day 4: Räikkönen tops final day as teams conduct wet tyre tests

Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen set the fastest lap of a somewhat disjointed final day of the first 2017 F1 test in Barcelona.

With the day set for testing of Pirelli’s new wet weather tyres compounds, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was wetted overnight and at lunchtime using water tanker trucks. However, with track temperatures reaching more than 30˚C the surface dried quickly and useful running on wet or dry tyres was thus hard to come by.

In the morning session the track only remained wet enough to use the full wet blue Pirelli tyres for around an hour before the switch to intermediates was made. Late in the session Räikkönen bolted on slick tyres and claimed lunchtime P1 with a lap of 1:22.305.

The Ferrari driver got through 45 laps in the morning, which was 36 more than Mercedes. The champions spent most of the opening session in its garage with the team saying it was working to fix and electrical fault on its car. As such Lewis Hamilton failed to turn any laps on the final day. Just before lunch as the wet running gave way to the use of slicks, Mercedes sent Valtteri Bottas out on track.

The track was watered again during the lunch break and afterwards few teams ventured out to test the conditions, though Bottas did give Mercedes some wet weather running early in the session. The Finn eventually put 68 laps on the board before Mercedes called time on its day’s work in the final hour of running having seen a cause for concern in data from its car. Bottas ended the day in P8.

When the crossover point eventually arrived Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen briefly took over from Räikkönen at the top of the timesheet but the Finn was soon in command again, pushing the Dutchman to second by a margin of 0.897s. Both the Ferrari and Red Bull driver set their best time on the soft compound tyres.

With Verstappen second, third place on the timesheet went to Renault’s Jolyon Palmer who took over from Nico Hulkenberg for the afternoon session. The Briton’s best time, just nine thousandths of a second behind Verstappen, was also set on the soft compound Pirelli.

Haas’ Romain Grosjean made a step towards the softer end of the range to claim fourth place, however, with the Frenchman using the red-banded supersoft to set a time of 1:22.309. Grosjean was also the day’s busiest driver, getting through 118 laps of the Catalonian track.

Antonio Giovinazzi was fifth for Sauber, just over 1.5s off Räikkönen’s pace on ultrasofts, while sixth place went to Force India’s Sergio Perez who set his best time using the supersofts.

McLaren enjoyed another day of useful running with Stoffel Vandoorne getting through 66 laps to put a good gloss on what started out as a troubled week for the Honda-powered team. The Belgian finished the day ahead of Bottas and Hulkenberg. It was left to Toro Rosso to prop up the timesheet. The Italian outfit completed just one lap in the morning, with Daniil Kvyat at the wheel. The car was then brought back to the garage for an engine change and then failed to emerge for the rest of the day. Williams, meanwhile, were not able to run owing to damage sustained yesterday when Lance Stroll crashed the team’s car.