Friday’s work in Spain went off without a hitch for Scuderia Ferrari, with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc completing a total of 123 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona. Both SF90s were fitted with the latest evolution of the Power Unit making its debut on the Catalan track.
First session. In the 90 minutes of the morning session, the drivers focussed on evaluating the aero updates introduced here. Sebastian and Charles ran the Soft tyre while working on car balance. Both men did 20 laps each, the German posting a best time of 1’18”066, fractionally quicker than the Monegasque who stopped the clocks in 1’18”172.
Second session. In the afternoon hour and a half of track time, the two drivers continued with set-up work, at the same time, running all three Pirelli compounds. This was done with both low and high fuel loads to simulate conditions in both qualifying and the early stages of the race respectively. On the softest tyres, Charles did a 1’17”585, with Sebastian posting a very similar time of 1’17”673. These times were good enough to put them in third and fourth places respectively on the timesheet, having completed 42 and 41 laps.
Qualifying and race. Track action resumes at 12 with the final hour of free practice, followed by qualifying from 3pm. The 49thSpanish Grand Prix gets underway at 15h10 on Sunday.
Charles Leclerc #16
“We focused on understanding our new package today and ran all of the tests we had planned. We have some more work to do to find the right balance, but this is normal when you put a car with new parts on track for the first time and it should be a quick fix. Today I’ve been quite less happy with the balance [compared to testing], but it’s normal when you bring so many new pieces on the car. But don’t panic! We still have to work a bit on the potential of the car and then we’ll see. We will push hard to challenge our competitors and have a positive qualifying result tomorrow.”
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