Barcelona-EL2: Hamilton and Mercedes continue

Best time this morning in free practice 1, at the wheel of a Extensively revised Mercedes W08, Lewis Hamilton once again set the benchmark time in EL2 this afternoon in Barcelona.

In the match between the German team and Ferrari, the single-seaters badged with the star seem to have regained a small margin this Friday. After the first stints on medium tires, it’s Sebastian Vettel which opens the ball of laps on soft tires, the softest compounds brought by Pirelli in Catalonia.

The Ferrari driver achieves a first lap in 1’21”220 for Sebastian Vettel. This time was quickly lowered by Lewis Hamilton who set a new and definitive reference in 1’20″802.

Only his teammate Valtteri Bottas will come closer to less than a tenth of the W08 n°44, the Finn failing at 90 thousandths. The winner of the Russian Grand Prix was the victim of an off-track passage into the gravel in the last three minutes at turn 6.

Behind the two Silver Arrows, the Ferraris of Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel, beaten by a second in EL1, finished 310 and 418 thousandths behind, the 2007 world champion appearing for a time to be the victim of an engine problem on his SF70H. Vettel, for his part, was surprised like Bottas in the final moments by going into the gravel trap at turn 4.

Max Verstappen, author of an off-trajectory passage at turn no. 9 without major consequences, and Daniel Ricciardo take 5th and 6th places more than six and seven tenths from Hamilton, and precede the two Renault RS17 Nico Hulkenberg and Jolyon Palmer, who confirm the good dispositions of the car French this Friday.

Felipe Massa (Williams) brings the Grove team back into the top 10 with the ninth time ahead of the Toro Rosso de Carlos Sainz. Romain Grosjean (Haas) and Esteban Ocon (Force India) fail at the points gate in front of the first McLaren-Honda from Stoffel Vandoorne.

Fernando Alonso (McLaren), after a morning prematurely cut short due to of an oil leak on the Honda Power Unit, was able to complete around twenty laps, but signed the last time behind Lance stroll (Williams), Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) and Pascal Wehrlein (Sauber).

The session was neutralized under a red flag just over 25' from the end of the clock, to be able to clean the track of debris escaped from the Toro Rosso of Spaniard Carlos Sainz.

EL2 classification