Mercedes crashes at Barcelona testing

Valtteri Bottas was only able to complete a handful of laps this Tuesday on the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona (Spain). The pilot Mercedes was the victim of an oil pressure problem at the very beginning of the afternoon requiring the replacement of the Power Unit by the reigning world champion team. The Finn was only able to return to the track during the last minutes of the session. Lewis Hamilton had yet completed 83 laps this morning without experiencing any problems.

Si Lando Norris established the best time of the day in 1'17''709, just over 3 tenths off the 2019 test benchmark set last Friday by Nico Hulkenberg (Renault), The McLaren MCL34 also experienced reliability issues, causing another red flag at the end of the session. The British team suffered hydraulic pressure problems this morning.

Pierre Gasly (Red Bull) was beaten by 6 thousandths, but the Frenchman had a great day being the most productive with 136 covers. Lance stroll (Racing Point) completed the top three of the day by preceding Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) which replaced Charles Leclerc in the second part of the day. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) completed the Top 5 without managing to reach the garage under his own power once the checkered flag dropped.

Three other drivers passed the 100 lap mark this Tuesday with Alexander albon (Toro Rosso), Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and George Russell (Williams). The Grove team finally carries out a real day of testing on its FW42.

Five days of pre-season testing down, three to go. Here's how the runners and riders looked at the end of Tuesday # F1testing # Fit4F1 pic.twitter.com/vz5PvZYTT0

- Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) 26th February 2019