Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsTests

Raikkonen sets quickest time of testing so far

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Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest time of testing so far as Ferrari set the pace on the penultimate day in Barcelona.

The morning session saw Raikkonen post an encouraging time on soft tyres which was marginally faster than Nico Rosberg had managed on the same compound on Tuesday. Raikkonen then ran the ultrasoft tyre in the final hour before the lunch break and posted a lap of 1:22.765 which went unbeaten.

Raikkonen was attracting the headlines on his installation lap as Ferrari ran a Halo cockpit protection device to test visibility for the driver, something which Raikkonen said caused him no issues.

Felipe Massa set the second fastest time of the day, with the Brazilian impressing on the soft compound tyre. Massa did try the ultrasoft in the afternoon session but his best time came on the soft, leaving him 0.1s slower than Raikkonen and Rosberg's times on the same tyre.

Nico Hulkenberg was another driver to use the ultrasoft to set his quickest time, with his best lap of the morning being beaten by Massa in the afternoon by just 0.058s. Max Verstappen in fourth - also on ultrasofts - ensured the top four were covered by less than 0.7s and all completed comfortably over 100 laps on a day full of running.

While a total of eight teams exceeded 100 laps, there were still three red flags which were all caused by Romain Grosjean. Haas was able to recover from its nightmare day on Wednesday - when it completed just one lap - to manage 78 laps but Grosjean went off at Turn 4 at the end of the morning session to end running, before two more stoppages in the afternoon.

The first afternoon red flag was the most dramatic for Grosjean, who went off at Turn 1 and ended up sideways next to the barrier. However, the car was not damaged and Grosjean returned before stopping with five minutes to go and ended the day prematurely.

There was more encouragement for McLaren as Fernando Alonso racked up 118 laps, although he was over two seconds off the pace. Alonso did test the ultrasoft tyre at one stage but failed to post his personal best on that compound.

Pascal Wehrlein was another driver to use the ultrasofts and set his best lap on the purple-walled tyre, though Manor was restricted to just 48 laps during the day. Renault looked set for a frustrating penultimate day as Jolyon Palmer completed just 26 laps in the morning, but the Briton recovered to add another 72 to that total in the afternoon session.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	Tyre
1	Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:22.765	136	US
2	Massa	Williams	1:23.193	119	S
3	Hülkenberg	Force India	1:23.251	137	US
4	Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:23.382	159	US
5	Rosberg	Mercedes	1:24.126	81	M
6	Nasr	Sauber	1:24.760	116	S
7	Alonso	McLaren	1:24.870	118	SS
8	Wehrlein	Manor	1:24.913	48	US
9	Kvyat	Red Bull	1:25.141	121	S
10	Palmer	Renault Sport	1:26.224	98	S
11	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:26.488	63	M
12	Grosjean	Haas	1:27.196	78	S

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.