Barcelona Pre-Season Test – Day 5: Felipe Massa, stakhanovist and fast

Williams had lost valuable track time during the first week of testing due to Lance Stroll’s multiple off-track excursions in his debut as an official driver. The team’s priority was therefore to make up for lost time, with Felipe Massa behind the wheel for the resumption of hostilities at the Barcelona circuit.

The least that can be said is that the former future retiree accomplished a considerable amount of work during the day since he completed 168 laps of the circuit, which was the highest total of the day, tying with Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari. This figure is to be compared with the total number of laps recorded last week, which only reached 213 laps over the entire four days.

But not only did the Brazilian cover an impressive distance, he was also able to achieve the best time of the day, at 1:19.726. He is therefore very close to last week’s absolute reference as Valtteri Bottas had clocked a lap in 1:19.705.

Very good Day for us @WilliamsRacing, 168 Laps. Not Bad for a old and ex retire Driver 😜…

— Felipe Massa (@MassaFelipe19) March 7, 2017

Another team has joined the club of sub-1:20 lap times as Daniel Ricciardo recorded a time of 1:19:900 while completing 89 laps. The Red Bull driver edged out Sebastian Vettel’s best time by a whisker, six-thousandths of a second, already an improvement over last week. The difference between the top three drivers is that Felipe Massa set his time on super-soft tires, while Daniel Ricciardo used ultra-softs, and Sebastian Vettel was “only” using soft tires, which raises hopes for significant gains when he switches to softer tires.

For once, the Mercedes drivers did not dominate the session and had to settle for the 4th and 5th fastest times. Lewis Hamilton had to settle for “only” 49 laps in the morning. The team decided to cut the session short to repair slight damage to the underfloor of his car. Valtteri Bottas took over in the afternoon and did not encounter any major problems, completing 89 laps.

Esteban Ocon was also keen to string together laps of the Catalunya circuit, after only being able to complete 82 laps on the two days he drove last week. Today, he managed to do 142 laps while significantly improving his best lap time, going from 1:22.509 to 1:21.347.

Behind, we find Nico Hülkenberg, who took over the Renault in the afternoon. However, the French manufacturer experienced new reliability issues with its engine and thus ended Jolyon Palmer’s morning session after only 15 short laps, before replacing the power unit as a precaution.

But Renault was not the only team to face such problems since those of McLaren-Honda are still not resolved. Thus Stoffel Vandoorne once again lost valuable running time after an electronic issue with his engine, which was once again replaced. However, the time loss was limited, and the Belgian was still able to complete 80 laps.

Sauber had also planned to split their day in two to allow an easy comeback for Pascal Wehrlein, who had been sidelined last week due to back issues. His morning was therefore dedicated to learning the procedures of a brand-new car and a new team. This didn’t prevent him from achieving a time three-tenths faster than his teammate, Marcus Ericsson.