F1 | Test in Barcelona, ​​fourth day: Raikkonen in the lead in the morning

Best time for Kimi Raikkonen in the morning session of the fourth day of F1 testing in Barcelona. The Ferrari driver lapped in 1.22.739 ahead of Romain Grosjean's Haas and Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren. We ran in mixed conditions on what is officially a test day dedicated to wet tires but the track progressively dried out late in the morning.

On the fourth day of F1 testing, Pirelli artificially flooded the Barcelona circuit to give the teams the opportunity to test the wet and intermediate tires. Verstappen was the first to take to the track and set a time of 1.45.735 on fullwet tires while Raikkonen and Vandoorne completed the installation lap.

Williams announced that it was unable to take to the track due to the damage suffered by the chassis of the FW40 in yesterday's Stroll accident. A replacement chassis will be adopted this afternoon for next week's testing.

Meanwhile, after the first half hour, Giovinazzi, Hulkenberg and Grosjean were also lapping on the track with insignificant times while Raikkonen moved into second position behind Verstappen who meanwhile was lapping in 1:40.357. Meanwhile, Mercedes announced that it had discovered an electrical problem on the W08 and therefore did not run in the wet.

The track was drying quickly leading to the possibility of new artificial flooding but Pirelli said that the trucks will not be in action again for the rest of the morning so the teams will also be able to test in the dry. After the first hour and a short break, the teams returned to action. Verstappen lapped with the intermediates in 1.38.286, beaten shortly afterwards by Hulkenberg with 1.38.107.

Raikkonen then dropped to 1:36.041 to take the lead with the intermediates ahead of Grosjean and Giovinazzi. Perez completed the installation lap with Force India around 11.30 while Grosjean took the lead with 1.32.946, shortly after overtaken first by Raikkonen and then by Verstappen in 1.29.867 on intermediate tyres.

Track already dry in many places even before 12.00. Raikkonen then fitted soft slick tires and took the lead with a 1.29.222.
The track progressively improved, all the riders switched to slicks. Raikkonen dropped to 1.25.557 but around 12.30 Perez took the lead with 1.24.893 while Hulkenberg was close behind with 1.25.525.

Crowding on the track in the last 15 minutes of the morning session: first Vandoorne (ultrasoft) and then Raikkonen took the lead. The Finn lapped in 1.22.662 on soft tyres.

Behind him came first Verstappen on medium tires and then Grosjean, 4 tenths of a second behind, on supersoft tyres. In the final, Vandoorne moved up to third place on ultrasoft tyres. Bottas lapped at a slow pace towards the end in place of Hamilton who chose not to lap.
We will return to testing starting from 14.00 pm on the artificially flooded track again.

F1 Test Barcelona – Fourth day – Morning