Barcelona Testing II – Day 4 (morning): Bottas leads with Williams at the break

The sky is overcast this morning, but temperatures are warmer than the rest of the week. We expect up to 20°C in the afternoon with the sun making few appearances. Under these conditions, the drivers are less enduring than yesterday, except for a few like Felipe Nasr.

The Sauber driver completes more than 70 laps with the Sauber. He sets the 3rd fastest time of the morning on super soft tires, and is 1 second behind Valtteri Bottas in the Williams.

Sebastian Vettel is currently second. He set his time on super soft tires: 1:23.469. He completed 52 laps.

Sergio Perez sat for the first time in the cockpit of the Force India VJM08. He is 4th and completed 54 laps without encountering any reliability issues. The Force India seems to be well-born. He even outpaced Rosberg in the Mercedes. The German played hide and seek with his competitors by performing stints on unmarked tires to conceal his performance level. He still completed 70 laps.

Verstappen is on duty today with Toro Rosso. He completed almost 50 laps and practiced a lot with standing starts as he exited the pit lane. This is also the case for Felipe Nasr’s Sauber. Private testing is also an opportunity for young drivers to prepare for the less calm starts of F1 Grand Prix races.

Ricciardo sets the 7th fastest time but he was only able to complete 10 laps. The Red Bull came to a halt at 10:30 right at the pitlane exit, causing the only red flag of the morning. Red Bull explained that they encountered an issue with the energy recovery system. They have not returned to the track since.

Piste de nouveau libre. Les mécaniciens de Red Bull se sont chargés de ramener la RB11 #F1 pic.twitter.com/jXH1qDaZQv

— Motors Inside – F1 (@MotorsInside) 1 Mars 2015

Maldonado was not very active on the track either. He is 8th with 35 laps to his credit.

Jenson Button, who took the wheel of the MP4 only 15 minutes before the end of the morning, is therefore last, with no time on his clock.

McLaren explained on their Twitter that they encountered some setup issues.

Results of the morning private tests in Barcelona, day 8: Sunday, March 1, 2015: