Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time of pre-season testing so far on the third day of the second test at the Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver set a time of 1m22.765s on the Pirelli Ultrasoft to usurp the lap set by his team-mate Sebastian Vettel during the opening test by 0.045s.
Raikkonen had earlier in the day tested the Halo cockpit protection system that the FIA hope will become mandatory on all cars from the 2017 season, before getting on with his programme, ending 0.428s faster than Felipe Massa of Williams Martini Racing.
Massa used the Soft tyre to good use to get ahead of two other drivers who utilised the Ultrasoft on day three, – Nico Hulkenberg of Sahara Force India was third fastest and Max Verstappen fourth for Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Verstappen completed the highest number of laps with 159 laps, while Nico Rosberg ended fifth for Mercedes, who once again split the driving duties between its two drivers – Lewis Hamilton ended eleventh fastest. Rosberg (81 laps completed) and Hamilton (63) completed another mammoth day of running for the team, with both setting their times on Medium tyres.
Felipe Nasr completed an encouraging 116 laps for the Sauber F1 Team as the Brazilian finished sixth fastest ahead of Fernando Alonso of McLaren-Honda, who completed an encouraging 118 laps of his own.
Pascal Wehrlein only ran 48 laps on day three for Manor Racing, but an Ultrasoft run saw the young German finish eighth quickest, ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat and Jolyon Palmer of Renault.
Romain Grosjean caused three red flag periods during the day but still managed to complete 78 laps for the Haas F1 Team after the team solved its turbo issues that had restricted Esteban Gutierrez to two unproductive days on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Circuit de Catalunya Pre-Season Test 2 Day 3 Times
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