Barcelona II, day 4: Räikkönen quickest as Ferrari end testing on a high

Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time of pre-season testing to top the timesheets as the testing came to a close in Barcelona today. The Ferrari driver set a time of 1:18.643 to eclipse Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen by the sizeable margin of eight tenths of a second.

Räikkönen’s best time of testing came during the morning session and was set on supersoft tyres. But while the Finn gave the Maranello squad plenty to cheer it wasn’t a perfect outing. In the afternoon session Räikkönen encountered a technical issue and his car ground to a halt off track as he tried to limp it to the pits. He did return to the action late on but it was tokenistic and he ended the day with 111 laps and the quickest time to his name.

Second place on the timesheet went to Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver also focused on shorter runs in the morning and longer stints in the afternoon and as such his performance run came in the opening period, with his time of 1:19.483 also being set on supersoft tyres.

Yesterday Daniil Kvyat’s final day at the wheel of Toro Rosso’s STR12 netted the Russian the day’s fourth-quickest lap and today team-mate Carlos Sainz wwnt one better, grabbing P3 with a supersoft run just under four tenths of a second off Verstappen’s pace.

Again, though, it wasn’t all plain sailing and Sainz brought out the red flags in the afternoon when he cruised to a halt on the start-finish straight.

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas finished fourth, just five thousandths of a second ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who ran in the afternoon for the champions setting a best time of 1:19.850 on ultrasofts.

With the bulk of teams turning their attention to longer runs in the afternoon the morning time set by Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was good enough to keep him in sixth place, ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez and Renault team-mate Jolyon Palmer, both of whom also set their best times in the morning.

Williams rookie was ninth-quickest and the Canadian, who will make his race debut in Melbourne in two weeks’ time, racked up the day’s largest lap total with 132. Haas’ Romain Grosjean rounded out the top 10 for Haas, with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso in 11th place ahead of Sauber teammates Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein.