Pierre Gasly completed 169 laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday to give his Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda team ‘plenty of data to analyse’ ahead of the final day.
Toro Rosso struggled with reliability last season, failing to finish twelve times in the twenty races. however, the team successfully completed 169 laps – fourteen more than the already-ambitious target – across both the ultrasoft and new hypersoft compounds.
“It was a productive day from both the team and myself as we completed everything we had planned. We set a target of 155 laps and in the end we managed to do 169, so I was happy to finish off testing with a busy day.
“Today I used the ultrasoft and the hypersoft for the first time – and the car always feels good when you have more grip – so we covered more or less all of the tyre compounds and I think we will have plenty of data to analyse now.”
Gasly’s fastest time was a 1:18.373s – just over a second off Sebastian Vettel‘s 1:17.182s – and fast enough for third on the day. Whilst he admits the result isn’t much to go off ahead of the first race in Melbourne at the end of the month, he’s still happy with the result.
“I’m pretty happy with my lap times so far and I think we have a better idea where we are at after today, because everyone has started to push the limits a bit more,” said Gasly.
“I’m really pleased to finish the last day of testing for me with the third fastest time, even if I know it doesn’t mean too much right now! We will see where we are at after qualifying in Melbourne.”
