Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo was the quickest on the first day of Pirelli’s wet weather test at the Paul Ricard Circuit on Monday.
Ricciardo finished the session four-tenths of a second ahead of the McLaren-Honda of Stoffel Vandoorne, while Scuderia Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen was another half a second back, although none of the three teams were there to seek fast times.
A total a 285 laps were completed during the wet weather test with both Ricciardo and Raikkonen completely 99 laps, while Vandoorne ran 87, all three running in 2015 machinery.
To help evaluate the prototype designs of wet compounds by Pirelli, the three drivers that participated spent their day primarily doing 10-lap runs, with the focus being on the Italian tyre manufacturers more extreme wet weather rubber rather than the intermediate compounds.
Between runs, the circuit was soaked by a sprinkler system to ensure track conditions stayed as stable as possible. Vandoorne suffered a suspected technical failure early in the afternoon which saw the first and only red flag of the day, this left the Belgian stranded on track.
Sebastian Vettel will take over from Raikkonen for Tuesday’s test for Ferrari, while Daniil Kvyat will replace Red Bull team-mate Ricciardo. 2015 GP2 Series champion Vandoorne will remain McLaren’s driver for the final day.
