Brendon Hartley enjoyed only his second day in the STR13 on Wednesday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the Kiwi having had only previously run on the opening day of the first pre-season test due to last weeks poor weather conditions.
Hartley attempted to make up for lost time and completed one hundred and nineteen laps on Wednesday, with the Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda driver’s best lap of 1:19.823s was good enough to see him fifth fastest overall.
The twenty-eight-year-old has one more day in the car to come on Friday, and despite a couple of spins on the day, he hopes to get them out of the way before the season truly gets underway in Australia at the end of the month.
“Today was a really good day, we had just some little issues in the afternoon which cost us a little bit of time, but we made up for it in the end with a couple of long runs on high fuel,” said Hartley.
“I’m getting to know the STR13 more and more – I hadn’t driven since day one of the first test – so that was a really productive day for me and it was nice to see how the car has progressed.
“Everything has been quite reliable so far, we had a couple of hiccups the last two days which have been resolved and all understood, so overall it’s been very good.
“We tried some different set-ups this morning which made the car quite tricky to drive, but I’m happy to have a couple of spins in testing …it’s better to have them here than in the race! In the afternoon I was really comfortable with the car and the long runs, and satisfied to bang in a reasonable time in the end.”