FEBRUARY 28, 2019

Preseason test two, day 3 - Red on red

Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of the day in his red Ferrari and then caused the session to be red flagged late in session when his car stopped out on the circuit with a small exhaust problem. He had completed 138 laps - two race distances - by that stage. His lap time of 1:16.231 was the quickest yet in seven days of preseason testing. Lewis Hamilton's pole winning time for last year's Spanish Grand Prix was a 1:16.173.

By Dan Knutson

Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of the day in his red Ferrari and then caused the session to be red flagged late in session when his car stopped out on the circuit with a small exhaust problem. He had completed 138 laps - two race distances - by that stage. His lap time of 1:16.231 was the quickest yet in seven days of preseason testing. Lewis Hamilton's pole winning time for last year's Spanish Grand Prix was a 1:16.173.

"I think it hasn't changed since day one to be honest," Leclerc said of the car earlier in the day. "The car feels comfortable, from day one the balance is pretty nice and it hasn't changed today,"

Alexander Albon wound up second quickest in the Toro Rosso.

"I'm quite happy with how winter testing went as I was able to do a lot of laps and maximize my time in the car," the rookie said. "It's still early days and we won't know until Melbourne what everyone else has been working on, but I think we can be satisfied with how everything turned out the past four days.

"We managed to have another day cracking the 100-lap mark, so that's a testament to the team's hard work and the reliability from Honda. Coming into testing you always want to get the most mileage as possible and we've done that, so it's been a lot of learning and getting comfortable with the car - something I wouldn't have been able to do if we weren't reliable.

McLaren's Lando Norris set the third best lap time.

"The morning went well, and we made some small improvements from the last two days," he said. "Many of the runs this morning were beneficial in helping us gain a better understanding of the car.

"I tried out various configurations during short runs, which gave us more information on how the car reacts to different tires and fuel loads. We followed that with some longer runs on harder tires that helped us to improve the balance of the car.

Pierre Gasly, fourth fastest, smashed the Red Bull into the barriers.

"I made a mistake in Turn 9 and basically lost the car, pretty big crash, one of the biggest crash I had so far," he said. "So a long night for the mechanics, sorry for them. The most important thing is we can get Max (Verstappen) in the car tomorrow. Focus on the positives - we managed to do a lot of testing and have things to analyze"

Friday will be the eighth and final day of preseason testing.

Preseason Test 2

Day 3 lap times

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) - 1m16.231s - C5 compound - 138 laps

Alexander Albon (Toro Rosso) - 1m16.882s - C5 compound - 118 laps

Lando Norris (McLaren) - 1m17.084s - C5 compound - 84 laps

Pierre Gasly (Red Bull) - 1m17.091s - C5 compound - 65 laps

Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) - 1m17.204s - C5 compound - 65 laps

Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) - 1m17.496s - C5 compound - 73 laps

Lance Stroll (Racing Point) - 1m17.556s - C5 compound - 103 laps

Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) - 1m17.639s - C5 compound - 71 laps

Romain Grosjean (Haas) - 1m17.854s - (C4) compound -16 laps

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) - 1m18.097s - (C2) compound - 85 laps

George Russell (Williams) - 1m18.130s - C5 compound - 140 laps

Kevin Magnussen (Haas) - 1m18.199s - (C3) compound - 53 laps

Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) - 1m18.862s - (C3) compound - 96 laps

(Pirelli has five different compounds of slick tires which range from the hardest C1 to the softest C5.)