Barcelona F1 test: Raikkonen first to break into the 1m18s

After Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time of the winter yet on Thursday, teammate Raikkonen finally broke through the 1m19s barrier on Friday morning with a best time of 1m18.634s on supersofts, set with a little over 20 minutes remaining of the session.

Towards the start of the final hour, Raikkonen had come within five thousandths of Vettel's benchmark, set on ultrasofts but also affected by the German backing off in the last sector, before his subsequent run put him a full 0.490s clear of his teammate.

While Raikkonen went out for a run on ultrasofts in the dying moments of the session, he didn't improve on his earlier best, although he dipped under the 1m19s barrier again.

The Ferrari driver ended up 0.804s ahead of nearest rival Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver also using supersofts to set his best lap of 1m19.438s.

A late effort on ultrasofts allowed Carlos Sainz to vault up to third for Toro Rosso, the Spaniard recording a 1m19.837s to end up just 0.008s clear of the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, whose best lap of the morning came on supersofts.

Sainz's late charge demoted Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) and Sergio Perez (Force India), both of whom used ultrasofts on their best laps, to fifth and sixth respectively.

Williams newcomer Lance Stroll was seventh using the soft tyre, ending up the joint most productive driver of the morning along with Sauber's Marcus Ericsson on 59 laps.

Stroll finished a second clear of Haas driver Romain Grosjean, who caused two red flags during the morning.

The first came in the second hour when the Frenchman spun into the gravel at Turn 5, while the other was a result of the Haas VF-17 grinding to a halt along the back straight with around 15 minutes remaining of the morning.

Completing the leaderboard were Ericsson and Fernando Alonso, who suffered a repeat of the electrical issues that hampered Stoffel Vandoorne's running on Thursday.

The Spaniard caused the second red flag of the morning when he stopped on the approach to Turn 10 just over two hours into the session, and suffered another breakdown on his out-lap some 30 minutes later, the MCL32 making it as far as Turn 4.

Alonso therefore only completed 19 laps, his best being a 1m22.731s on ultrasofts that left him just over four seconds off the pace of former teammate Raikkonen.

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:18.634		48
2	M. Verstappen	Red Bull	1:19.438	0.804	33
3	C. Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:19.837	1.211	39
4	V. Bottas	Mercedes	1:19.845	1.251	53
5	N. Hulkenberg	Renault	1:19.885	1.482	45
6	S. Perez	Force India	1:20.116	1.647	46
7	L. Stroll	Williams	1:20.335	1.701	59
8	R. Grosjean	Haas	1:21.429	2.795	44
9	M. Ericsson	Sauber	1:21.670	3.036	59
10	F. Alonso	McLaren	1:22.731	4.097	19