Barcelona Pre-Season Testing – Day 8: First Breakdown for Hamilton and Mercedes
On the occasion of the last day of testing before Melbourne, Mercedes experienced their first technical problem, which shortened Lewis Hamilton's driving time. Once again, it was Sebastian Vettel who dominated the day, with the fastest time.
The impressive streak of Mercedes has therefore come to an end, just before the close of the morning session. Indeed, Lewis Hamilton was forced to stop due to a failure in his transmission. But the reigning world champion is pleased that it happened now so that the identified issue can be resolved before the season starts: “I’m almost happy that I broke the car at the end of my last stint today because it’s better to find something now than in Melbourne.”
In the afternoon, Nico Rosberg was able to take the wheel and complete an additional 70 laps. In total, the men in gray managed to do 1,294 laps, equivalent to 19 Grand Prix concluded in just eight days. Reliability seems to be on point. The team even allowed themselves the luxury of not chasing performance since Nico Rosberg occupies the last position of the day.
Thus, if he is satisfied with the performance of his Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel knows well that the competition will be much stronger in Melbourne: « We have tried to close the gap with the cars in front, which was quite large last year. I think we did a good job last season, and now I think the new one allows us to reduce the gap even more. But we have to be patient »
This final day was also marked by the stoppage of Sergio Perez’s Sahara Force India on track while the Mexican was in the middle of a race simulation, which did not allow him to complete more than 60 laps. Nevertheless, he feels confident for the start of the season: “The program this morning went as planned. But during our long afternoon stint, we lost power and the car stopped on the track. We were still able to do 60 laps today. Overall, we have learned a lot over the past two weeks.”
Manor, on the other hand, experienced another complicated day as Rio Haryanto was only able to complete a single installation lap throughout the morning. Nevertheless, the Indonesian driver managed to go out in the afternoon, adding 58 more laps for the day. In total, the small team was able to complete 484 laps over the two weeks of testing. This is the second smallest total, just 10 laps more than the newcomer, Haas.
The American team chose to have both its drivers on the track during the day to give Esteban Gutierrez the opportunity to accumulate laps, after losing his day on Wednesday. Even though the lap times of both drivers were roughly the same today, the French driver managed to complete significantly more laps, with 66 compared to 25.
Regarding Red Bull, there was satisfaction as Daniel Ricciardo was able to complete 123 laps again, recording the 6th fastest time of the day. The Australian notes real progress compared to the past: “It went well, but I’m glad that the next time we’re in the car, it will be for a race! I think the tests went really well. I believe that on three of my four days of testing, we were able to do more than 100 laps. So it’s clearly better than the last two years. We have improved. I think there are still great things to come, but it’s a positive start to the year.”
CLASSIFICATION: DAY 4, FINAL TEST
Vettel ⏱
Vettel 💪#F1Testing pic.twitter.com/mIGNfwwgiD— Formula 1 (@F1) 4 mars 2016
With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr
