Sebastian Vettel was fastest during the third day of the second Formula 1 pre-season test at the Catalunya circuit.
Ferrari driver’s time is the best for the sessions until now. Second for the day was Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes). Esteban Ocon with Force India was third fastest on Thursday.
#F1 @ScuderiaFerrari‘s Vettel finishes the penultimate day of #F1Testing at @Circuitcat_eng on top! pic.twitter.com/deZf7KTpb0
— FIA (@fia) 9 March 2017
“The car is much better than last year because the nature of the formula has changed. So far I think things are making sense – but it’s still early days. I think if you look at the amount of laps Mercedes has done, if you look historically how slow they were going in the test, how much they were able to ramp it up for the races… I think it’s clear that they’re very fast if you look at their long-run pace, et cetera. I think they’re the ones to beat”, Vettel commented, quoted by motorsport.com
“There’s a lot of stuff on our list. We’re probably still a little bit behind, a lot of stuff to do, a lot of boxes to be ticked.”
Observers on the circuit saw that the German driver was slowing down during his runs on Thursday. He said that is not always intentional.
“I think it doesn’t really matter here, if you look at one single laptime. I think you need to look at more than that, and in that regard there’s still a lot of work to do”, Sebastian Vettel added.
McLaren had even more problems today
Stoffel Vandoorne stopped twice in the morning with electrical issues. In the afternoon he managed only 16 laps. Meanwhile the team canceled the planned briefing with Eric Boullier and Honda’s Yusuke Hasegawa after Fernando Alonso’s very harsh criticisms against the engine manufacturer.
Four drivers managed to do more than 100 laps for the day. Vettel had 156 at the end of the Thursday, Ocon – 137, Kevin Magnussen (Haas) – 119, Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) – 128.
