Feb.25 – The final day of 3 pre-season running from Barcelona started off with overcast and cooler temperatures, but no rain was seen yet.
Because of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Haas decided to get rid of their ‘Russian’ F1 livery for this final day of testing.
Morning Session – Final day
Max Verstappen gets things underway for Red Bull on the final day in Barcelona, the Dutchman heading out for the final morning onto a decidedly chilly track. He hasn’t driven since Day 1, and since then a raft of new parts have arrived at the Red Bull garages to test.
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain
Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR22
Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin and George Russell in the Williams have also both headed out right away. Pierre Gasly follows them sporting aero rakes on the AlphaTauri AT03. After ten minutes all cars had done their first laps.
There’s just one rookie on the grid this season, Zhou Guanyu from China. He had to wait until yesterday afternoon to make his bow, but performed well – no obvious errors, and 71 laps to his name was a good return. He was back in the car this morning.
Lando Norris was also back in the car this morning for McLaren. He clocked the fastest lap time on the first day.
Less then one hour into the session smoke was coming out of Fernando Alonso’s Alpine A522 and the Spanish driver was stranded near turn 13, which caused the first red flag of this final day of testing. The team later on confirm the issue was a problem with the sealing of the hydraulics system and it ended their testing. The French team only drove 12 laps today.
After the track was clear again Verstappen put in some faster laps and was just a tenth slower than Leclerc’s fastest lap of yesterday. At the same time Haas told us on twitter the VF-22 has a suspected leak which they had to investigate.
Russell had completed the most laps around 11 o’clock this morning, with 46 and counting as he headed back out. He had been running the C3 medium compound tyre.
After 40 laps Gasly crashed the AT03 front in the second sector and a second red flag was out. He was ok and headed back to the garage. The crash also ended their testing. It took about 20 minutes before the track was given the green light again. It wasn’t long before the third red flag was out, when Rookie Zhou beached the Alfa Romeo C42 after a spin.
At the end of the morning session Russell clocked the fastest lap time so far, with a 1:19.233 min. Not very much later the fourth red flag came out because the Aston Martin of Vettel was smoking due to an oil leak. The team wasn’t able to fix the leak quickly and it ended their Barcelona testing. The British team did manage to add 48 laps to their total.
Afternoon Session – Final day
During the afternoon session on this third day there was a special wet weather test. In agreement with Pirelli the track will be a wet to also do a weather test so they can see their wet and intermediate tyres in action.
Ricciardo was the first to head out for McLaren on full wets. After 7 minutes he already swapped to intermediate tyres. A bit later Nicholas Latifi joined with the Williams on the same tyres.
Nicholas Latifi testing the Williams Racing FW44 in the wet on day 3, Friday 25th February 2022. Barcelona, Spain.
Hamilton and Perez took over the testing duties form their teammate this afternoon. Russell told during the lunch break that they are not fully happy with the balance of the W13, but we’re here to learn and we’ve made some good experiments. We are happy with the direction they are heading.
It was also Bottas’ turn to take over the wheel from Zhou to test the Alfa Romeo in the wet this afternoon. But because his teammate ran into some issues towards the end of the morning session. The Finn really hasn’t had much lap time so far this week yet.
The Haas team also had to call it a day earlier than expected. A technical issue was keeping them busy for hours since this morning and at 15:30 the news got out they would not go out anymore. The American team only managed to drive 9 laps today.
There is some work to do for Haas and Alfa Romeo reliability wise. The other teams will need to sort out the porpoising issue. Which make the cars bounce like dolphin and hurts their top speed on the main-straight.
At the end of the day Hamilton and Perez pushed out some quicker laps and drove the fastest laps of this test on the C5 (softest) compound. In the end Hamilton was quickest with a 1:19.138 min.
Ferrari also had a good day as did Red Bull. The Bulls bounced back from their slight hiccup yesterday when they lost a lot of running, due to a gearbox problem. McLaren also had a trouble free day, and will be pleased with their mileage from this week.
Quickest Lap Times 3rd day of testing
times will follow shortly
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