Kimi Räikkönen on the attack in Barcelona

Kimi Räikkönen was very close to achieving a new absolute benchmark this Friday morning at the Barcelona winter tests. For the last day of driving before the Australian Grand Prix on March 25 in Melbourne, the driver Ferrari approached of the time set the day before by his teammate Sebastian Vettel.

In hyper-soft tires fitted to the SF71H, the 2007 world champion completed a lap of the Catalan track in 1'17″221, relegating Romain Grosjean (Haas), second, more than 1″3.

Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso) confirms the general reliability of the STR13 – Honda by climbing for the moment to third position a little less than four tenths behind Grosjean, but above all having accumulated 91 laps with the car powered by the Japanese bloc.

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) signs the fourth time, and passes the mid-day mark with the greatest number of laps covered (97). The reigning world champion is ahead Esteban Ocon (Force India), Sergey Sirotkin (Williams) and Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull).

Mechanics disrupt again McLaren, Leclerc in the barriers

Eighth provisional time this Friday, Charles Leclerc (Sauber) lost a lot of running time following an exit from the track and contact with the barriers, causing one of the two red flags of the morning.

Worse for Fernando Alonso, including the McLaren MCL33 – Renault was once again immobilized following a technical problem. The Woking team made another engine change, leaving Alonso on foot.

Carlos Sainz (Renault) was almost invisible this morning, with only four laps completed with the RS 18, the victim of gearbox problems. The day will end at 18 p.m.

Ranking to come