Barcelona II, day 4: Raikkonen ends winter testing on top

This afternoon the fourth and final day, not just of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, but of the Formula 1 2012 Winter Test Schedule, came to a close. With no one able to match the quickest lap time of the circuit this year throughout the afternoon, Kimi Raikkonen and the Lotus F1 E20 would end the day at the top of the time sheets with his lap set late in this morning’s session.

In an afternoon filled with race simulation and long runs with heavy fuel loads, teams would be pushed to compete with the times set this morning when the focus was on short stints, qualifying simulation and lighter cars. This meant the final time sheet remained relatively unchanged from the mornings lap times posted.

Kimi Raikkonen and the Lotus F1 team will leave the week of testing surely happy with their achievements – both drivers finished at the top of the time sheets this week on separate days, and the E20 showed extreme reliability and strength on track, as well as a well-balanced car which adapted well to the Pirelli compounds; typically lasting slightly longer than the other teams could manage. This afternoon, Raikkonen would complete a full race simulation, ending the stint just one lap short of an entire Grand Prix race distance at the Circuit de Catalunya. The ‘Iceman’ finished the day having totalled an impressive 121 laps.

Fernando Alonso would retain his second place on the time sheets with a total of 115 laps completed on the final day. Focusing on long runs throughout the afternoon session, the team would once again take time to test the various tyre compounds made available to them by Pirelli. Alonso’s race simulation would be effected twice this afternoon by red flags though, once by Kobayashi’s Sauber which suffered an engine failure, and then again when Vitaly Petrov tripped through a gravel trap.

Having once again hit the target of Alonso’s ‘100 lap minimum’ per day, the team have collected a lot of data, and have proved they have a car that can not only be reliable, but that also adapts well to the new Pirelli compounds for 2012.

Bruno Senna, who was not in the Williams F1 FW34 this afternoon as the team opted to split the days’ run between their two drivers, finished in third overall for the final test with 53 laps on the car.

Nico Hulkenberg would also complete more than one hundred laps today and would remain fourth overall. Kamui Kobayashi was also right behind him in fifth. As stated earlier, an engine failure early in the afternoon session would restrict the Sauber to just 72 laps today, somewhat less than the team were able to achieve of the previous couple of days.

Lewis Hamilton finished the day with 115 laps on the McLaren, sixth overall, and with no reported problems or issues. The upgrades to the MP4-27 will give McLaren a sense of achievement from the weekends work.

Bar a trip across the gravel trap at Turn 4 which brought the second red flag to the session late in the afternoon, Vitaly Petrov would finish well in the mid-field time range on the last day, seventh on the time sheets and another man to complete over one hundred laps. Caterham F1 will regard a finish above eighth place sitter Michael Schumacher as a reasonably good days work.

The revised Mercedes W03, carrying minor upgrades to the chassis and air intake, as well as the floor, would be driven 100 laps today, making Schumacher the sixth of eleven runners to complete the century today. With team-mate Nico Rosberg praising the cars performance over testing, one would hope to see Mercedes challenging at the front of the grid again soon. Schumacher would be the last person today to get to within a second of the pace of Kimi Raikkonen.

Pastor Maldonado, who was in the Williams F1 car this afternoon, would not manage the same speed or distance as his team-mate this morning, and a quickest lap time of 1:23.347 meant he would finish in ninth place for the day; 1.317 seconds off the pace of the Lotus F1 E20, whilst tenth place would belong to Daniel Ricciardo and his Toro Rosso – he would also be the last person today to achieve the century of laps; 100 in total.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing’s day went from bad to worse this afternoon. Suffering from a gearbox issue on the car, and with damage done to the front wing when on track this morning, the team would be unable to get the car back on track at all this afternoon except for within the last eight minutes of the session when the green flag came out again after Vitaly Petrov’s stop on track. However, with just 23 laps achieved from double World Champion in total, the car would finish in eleventh and last place for the day.

Having launched the ‘revised’ RB8 on Saturday morning, which includes a re-designed chassis, exhaust layout and other minor changes, the ‘new’ car would total just 85 laps over a two day period, thanks to Webber’s 70 laps of running completed yesterday. When compared with other teams, such as McLaren, who would total more than 93 laps a day this week, the team will leave with Barcelona in an air of uncertainty of what to expect from their car when it arrives in Australia in two weeks’ time.

Day 4 Session times and total lap numbers can be seen below. This brings an end to the Formula 1 2012 Winter Test Schedule.

Formula 1 will now return in two weeks’ time for the first Grand Prix of the 2012 Calendar in Melbourne, Australia on the weekend of March 16 – 18 2012.

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