FEBRUARY 21, 2019

Preseason testing day 4 - Fast to stop

Nico Hulkenberg clocked the fastest lap time on the fourth and final day of the first preseason testing in Spain. But his session ended before the checkered flag when his Renault stopped out on the track. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo wound up third.

By Dan Knutson

Nico Hulkenberg clocked the fastest lap time on the fourth and final day of the first preseason testing in Spain. But his session ended before the checkered flag when his Renault stopped out on the track. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo wound up third.

Alexander Albon completed 136 laps and turned the second quickest time in his Toro Rosso.

"My first two days of F1 testing completed and I really enjoyed it!" Albon said. "Everything is going to plan quite well, we've hit our mileage target which is important for the guys back at the factory, and of course at the same time, I'm still learning the car. The grip is so high that it took a while for my head to adjust to it, it's been a big learning curve! I'm still not fully in the rhythm yet but I think after next week I'll be there and ready to race."

Mercedes drivers Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton wound up fourth and fifth.

"Today we did some shorter runs, seeing how the W10 works when you try to extract a little bit more performance out of it," Bottas said. We've been making progress throughout the entire week, the car felt better every single day."

Cold track temperatures in the morning limited Hamilton's running.

"It was quite cold in the morning which meant that it was a little bit difficult with the tires for everyone," he said. "In general, the car was feeling better today and is coming together. However, we still have to keep on digging deep, analyzing the data and the changes that we are making. The reliability has been really solid."

During the four days of test the Ferrari team completed a total of 598 laps – 303 for Sebastian Vettel and 295 for Charles Leclerc. The latter posted the sixth best time on the final day.

"For now, I don't want to say too much, because this is just testing" Leclerc said. "But the feeling from the car is very good. We did many laps; the reliability was good and every day we managed to complete our program."

The total laps for Haas was 384: Romain Grosjean (198 laps), Kevin Magnussen (125 laps) and Pietro Fittipaldi (61 laps).

"The end was better than the beginning of our test week," said Haas team principal Guenther Steiner. "We're happy with the mileage achieved, happy with the results. We ran our full program today, the first time we've been able to do that this week, so it feels like we've got something back that we lost at the beginning of the week with our technical gremlins. They seem to be sorted now. We're pretty upbeat and we look forward to test number two next week."

The second and final four-day preseason test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya begins on February 26.

Preseason Test 1

Day 4 lap times

Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) – 1m17.393s – 24 laps

Alexander Albon (Toro Rosso) – 1m17.637s – 136 laps

Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) – 1m17.785s – 34 laps

Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) – 1m17.857s – 57 laps

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 1m17.977s – 58 laps

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 1m18.046s – 138 laps

Lando Norris (McLaren) – 1m18.431s – 132 laps

Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) – 154 laps

Romain Grosjean (Haas) – 1m18.563s – 64 laps

Kevin Magnussen (Haas) – 1m18.720s – 66 laps

Pierre Gasly (Red Bull) – 1m18.780s – 146 laps

Lance Stroll (Racing Point) – 1m19.664s – 72 laps

George Russell (Williams) – 1m20.997s – 17 laps

Robert Kubica (Williams) – 1m21.542s – 48 laps