Formula One’s preseason continues on Friday with the third day of testing at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. Follow it all live here with us.
ESSENTIAL READING
DRIVER SCHEDULE
Mercedes: Bottas (AM), Hamilton (PM), Ferrari: Vettel, Red Bull: Verstappen (AM), Albon (PM), McLaren: Sainz (AM), Norris (PM), Renault: Ocon (AM), Ricciardo (PM), Alpha Tauri: Kvyat, Gasly, Racing Point: Stroll, Alfa Romeo: Giovinazzi, Haas: Grosjean (AM), Magnussen (PM), Williams: Latifi
LIVE BLOG
(All Central European Time)
14:20: Good news for Ferrari as Vettel leaves the garage after an engine change in his car, following that stoppage on track this morning. Ferrari will want a productive afternoon with lots of laps to make up for lost time.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto says the team does not know the specifics of the failure just yet.
1400: They’re back under way again. A few driver swaps, with Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Alpha Tauri and Haas changing drivers for this afternoon stint.
1300: That’s lunch. Busy morning for all the teams. Ferrari the biggest story so far, with an engine issue limiting Vettel to 40 laps.
Here are the times as they stand. Testing resumes at 2pm local time.
1. Valttteri Bottas – Mercedes – 1:15.732 – 69 laps
2. Esteban Ocon – Renault – +1.370s – 78 laps
3. Lance Stroll – Racing Point – +1.606s – 52 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Alpha Tauri – +1.695s – 62 laps
5. Max Verstappen – Red Bull – +1.904s – 86 laps
6. Antonio Giovinazzi – Alfa Romeo – +2.303s – 65 laps
7. Carlos Sainz – McLaren – +2.542s – 76 laps
8. Romain Grosjean – Haas – +2.648s – 48 laps
9. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari – +2.652s – 40 laps
10. Nicholas Latifi – Williams – +3.272- 44 laps
12:05: Bang! Nicholas Latifi’s Williams comes to a stop just after the pit exit. Replays show a little puff of smoke form the rear of his car just before he stopped. Red flag.
As Latifi’s car stopped off the racing line, Bottas crossed the line and absolutely smashed the quickest time of the test so far — 1:15.732 is the new benchmark, set on the ‘C5’, the softest compound in Pirelli’s range. That’s just 0.3s off last year’s pole position time. These cars are rapid.
11:30: Update from Ferrari: “Wehad to stop due to an engine problem, whose exact cause we will investigate back in Maranello – we are now fitting a new engine so will be back on track in the afternoon”
1055: Mercedes has a good sense of timing. Moments after the resumption of the day’s action following the red flag, Bottas goes quickest.
F1 Associate Editor
A stoppage in testing isn’t the end of the word, but the key for Ferrari will be a swift turnaround to get that car back out on track. With all these teams clearly super prepared for the tests mileage has been the key factor of the week so far and Ferrari can’t afford to lose too much ground to Mercedes or Red Bull in that category.
1030: We have our first red flag of the day and it’s Vettel! His Ferrari has stopped at the exit of Turn 12.
0930: It’s aero rake time again. Here’s Sebastian Vettel running one of the aero devices — used to measure air flow around the car — on the Ferrari this morning.
0900: Hello again and welcome back to our live text blog.
Here’s the run plan today:
It’s gonna be a busy day today… 👇 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/tdxfnxhaD4
— Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (@Circuitcat_eng) February 21, 2020