F1 Barcelona testing: Bottas remains in the lead ahead of Red Bull

Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) did not beat his time from the previous week, but the Finn still finished first in the winter tests of the F1 on the Catalunya circuit (Spain). The W11 was credited with a time of 1'16''196, almost half a second from its previous performance achieved last Friday.

Red Bull also showed some nice things since Max Verstappen (Red Bull) is the closest to the reference with less than 8 hundredths behind. The Dutchman is the only driver in the Top 5 not to have used the C5 rubber (the softest) to establish his benchmark and he seemed to be able to take first place since he took his foot off during his last attempt towards the finish line.

Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) completes the top three, 7 thousandths behind the RB16, the Australian having only driven in the first part of the session before giving up his place to his teammate Esteban Ocon.

With 177 laps on the clock, Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) was the most diligent on the track. The Monegasque precedes Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).

Sergio Pérez (Racing Point) was not idle either. The Mexican precedes the McLaren de Carlos Sainz Jr while both drivers exceeded the 150 loop mark. George Russell (Williams) follows in 9th place ahead of Daniil Kvyat (Alpha Tauri), Romain Grosjean (Haas) and Kimi Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo).

Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Alexander albon (Red Bull) complete the ranking, the Dane having only been able to cover 25 laps following a clutch problem.

F1 will resume on March 15 with the Australian GP contested at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne.

Discover the analysis of the second week of winter testing carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2257 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.