FEBRUARY 19, 2019

Preseason testing - Ferrari stays on top

Ferrari again continued to rack up the laps and clock the fastest time during the second day of preseason testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Sebastian Vettel was quickest on Day 1. His new teammate Charles Leclerc took over the SF90 on Day 2 during which he completed 157 laps and topped the times.

Lando Norris, Barcelona 2019
© RV Press

By Dan Knutson

Ferrari again continued to rack up the laps and clock the fastest time during the second day of preseason testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Sebastian Vettel was quickest on Day 1. His new teammate Charles Leclerc took over the SF90 on Day 2 during which he completed 157 laps and topped the times.

"Despite some red flag interruptions," Leclerc said, "we were able to get through all our program and to do 157 laps, which has produced a lot of useful data. In terms of feeling, I quickly felt comfortable with the SF90 and I have to say I really enjoyed myself. Emotion? There's always going to be some when you get into a Ferrari, but today I put that to one side because I had a job to do for the team."

Rookie Lando Norris wound up second in his McLaren. He used Pirelli tires one step softer than those run by Leclerc to set his time.

"I managed to do some longer runs, something I haven't managed to do so much of in any other tests so far," Norris said. "So for myself it's good to know that we can get through pretty much a whole day with no big problems. But it's only day two. I'm sure we're going to run into a couple of problems at some point, but it's just making sure I guess that we can get through this whole test."

Kevin Magnussen slotted his Haas into third place. Alexander Albon started the day by going off the track in his Toro Rosso and ended his day with the fourth fastest time.

"I was thinking 'don't spin it' but that was exactly what I did!" Albon said. "The morning was a little bit difficult but, to be honest, I didn't want to think too much about it when I got back into the car. I just said to myself, 'hey, the track is really cold and Kimi (Raikkonen) did the same yesterday,' so that kind of reassured me a little bit. In the end it was ok, definitely a good experience. The high-speed stuff is still new to me, a bit of a shock but I'm enjoying it."

Once again Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas split the testing duties at Mercedes. The former focused on aero work and the latter concentrated on chassis set-up.

"It's good that we're getting in a lot of mileage," Hamilton said, "and we will try to increase that over the next days as we continue to discover the characteristics of this car. That's the exciting part about it - learning something new and being faced with different challenges. Everyone is working so diligently, I'm really happy to be here with everyone for the seventh year in a row and I'm excited for this journey that we're embarking on."

Pierre Gasly completed 92 laps before crashing the Red Bull.

"Basically, you are pushing the car to the limits and playing with the limits," he said. "I went on throttle and lost the rear, and basically that was it. It caught me a bit by surprise."

Daniel Ricciardo had completed just 28 laps when his rear wing broke on the main straight.

"It's like going into the corner with the DRS open," he said. "As soon as I braked, I lost the car and spun. We avoided the wall, but just coming back to fix the rear wing and all of that, it takes some time. And you don't have a whole lot of parts. My morning was done after that."

Preseason Test 1

Day 2 lap times

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 1m18.247s – 157 laps

Lando Norris (McLaren) - 1m18.553s – 104 laps

Kevin Magnussen (Haas) – 1m19.206s – 59 laps

Alexander Albon (Toro Rosso) – 1m19.301s – 132 laps

Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) – 1m19.312s – 101 laps

Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) – 1m19.535s – 89 laps

Pierre Gasly (Red Bull) - 1m19.814s – 92 laps

Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) – 1m19.837s – 95 laps

Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) – 1m19.886s – 28 laps

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 1m19.928s – 74 laps

Lance Stroll (Racing Point) – 1m20.433s – 79 laps

Pietro Fittipaldi (Haas) - 1m21.849s – 13 laps