Kimi Raikkonen became the first non-Ferrari driver to head the times at the end of a Formula 1 pre-season test session so far in 2019. The Alfa Romeo driver turned in the fastest time seen so far in testing on a 1m17.762s to move to the top of the timesheets in the final hour of running in the morning, taking over from former Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel. Impressive morning session from Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo, who as a results becomes the only driver to dip into the 1:17s at F1 Testing, a time which was set on the second-softest tyre available.
Following Ferrari’s strong start to the opening test, Vettel led the way for much of the morning before the four-time world champion’s time was beaten by Kimi Raikkonen in the closing stages of the session, with the German finishing some six tenths down.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was third-quickest having completed a solid amount of mileage for the French squad, ahead of Daniel Kvyat, who returned to action for Toro Rosso, managing over 40 laps. Max Verstappen focused much of his early running on aero testing in his RB15 before posting a time within 0.002s of Kvyat’s to sit fifth heading into the lunch break.
The only red flag of the morning session was caused when Haas test driver Pietro Fittipaldi came to a halt on-track.
Having stepped in as a late sub for Kevin Magnussen after the Dane encountered a seat-fit issue on Tuesday, the Brazilian kicked off the American squad’s running on Wednesday and returned from a brief spell in the garage to set the sixth best time before handing over to Romain Grosjean for the afternoon. After enjoying its strongest start to testing in recent years and racking up the fourth-highest lap count over the first two days, McLaren missed the opening hour of running on Wednesday as it completed a host of overnight changes on its MCL34.
When Carlos Sainz did appear, he was able to conduct issue-free running and managed just shy of 30 laps with the seventh-quickest time.
Sergio Perez ended the morning eighth with 43 laps for Racing Point, with Mercedes once again focusing on racking up the miles and long runs as Valtteri Bottas propped up the timesheets in ninth, managing the most mileage of any driver with 88 laps to his name – he will hand over Mercedes’ W10 to reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton to complete the rest of the day.
Williams was once again absent from running on Wednesday but there was a positive update as the British squad’s 2019 F1 car finally arrived in the Barcelona paddock. The team hopes to get its first running of 2019 this afternoon with rookie George Russell, who was seen completing a seat fit in the fired-up FW42.
