Rosberg dominates opening morning of second Barcelona test
Nico Rosberg comfortably led the way for Mercedes on the first morning of the second pre-season Formula 1 test at Barcelona, in terms of both speed and mileage.
Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1 W07
XPB Images
The German went to top of the leaderboard early in the third hour with a time of 1m25.449s, only for Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari to then grab the top spot by going half a second faster.
By midday, however, Rosberg had re-asserted his authority with a time of 1m24.329s on medium tyres, before then equipping softs and slashing his best time by over a second with a 1m23.022s.
That left the Mercedes driver 1.814s clear of Raikkonen, who remained second with his best time on mediums, and Fernando Alonso’s soft-shod McLaren, which brought the session to a premature end by coming to a halt at the pit exit with a minute to go.
Valtteri Bottas, who had enjoyed a spell at the top of the timesheets before he was ousted by Rosberg, wound up fourth quickest for Williams, ahead of Max Verstappen in the newly-unveiled Toro Rosso and Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India.
Mercedes was also once again well ahead in terms of lap count, Rosberg completing 82 laps in the car he will hand over to teammate Lewis Hamilton this afternoon.
The second most productive team was Toro Rosso on 59, followed by Williams on 58.
Red Bull’s running was compromised by a small brake fire on Daniil Kvyat’s car, which resulted in the team only logging 22 laps for the morning – ahead only of Manor.
A water leak for Rio Haryanto meant the Indonesian driver spent almost the entire morning in the garage after his first installation lap.
He made it out again the dying moments, completing another installation run before the red flag, not setting a time.
Day 1 morning test times:
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:23.022 | 82 |
2 | K. Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:24.836 | 42 |
3 | F. Alonso | McLaren | 1:25.252 | 50 |
4 | V. Bottas | Williams | 1:25.255 | 58 |
5 | M. Verstappen | Toro Rosso | 1:25.356 | 59 |
6 | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | 1:25.954 | 50 |
7 | D. Kvyat | Red Bull | 1:26.227 | 22 |
8 | E. Gutierrez | Haas | 1:26.661 | 23 |
9 | F. Nasr | Sauber | 1:26.923 | 42 |
10 | K. Magnussen | Renault | 1:26.981 | 54 |
11 | R. Haryanto | Manor | no time | 2 |
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