(Motorsport-Total.com) – On the penultimate day of the 2020 winter tests in Barcelona, preparations for the upcoming Formula 1 season are slowly picking up speed. Several teams, including explicitly McLaren and Renault, had announced performance runs for Thursday and Friday and thus faster lap times. But the morning session was eventful for a completely different reason.
© LAT
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Max Verstappen provided one of the red flags on Thursday morning zoom
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Because two of the top stars made red flags in the first four hours. Around 12:15 p.m. Sebastian Vettel, the fastest man of the day so far (1: 16,841 minutes), was standing in the gravel bed.
Vettel lost his Ferrari starting from curve 5 out of control. Although he was able to free himself from the gravel, he dragged some stones onto the track that had to be swept away.
Max Verstappen had already flown twice before that. First, he turned around 10:45 in the finish chicane. “Oberbulle” Dietrich Mateschitz just arrived in the box when his Red Bull was cleaned.
Stalk twice off the track
Less than an hour later, Verstappen was again on the Vettel curve 5 next to the track after he had stepped onto the still wet curb when he turned. It was his sixth spin in the winter tests. And this time he had to get out of the car.
In terms of time, Red Bull is in P5 at noon, 0.897 seconds behind. The RB16 continues to prove difficult in terms of balance – but comes with a whole series of updates on the penultimate day of the test. Among other things, the team is testing a new front wing and a few minor aero innovations.
That the absolute best times of this winter had not yet been attacked on Thursday morning was due to the bad weather. It had rained overnight in Montmelo, so the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was still wet in the morning. The track dried off bit by bit, but did not (yet) build enough grip for new record times.
Time classification not representative
Vettel’s time on the super-soft C5, set up around 12:45 p.m., remained until the end of the four hours. Lance Stroll (Racing Point / + 0.277) on the middle C3 and Nicholas Latifi (Williams / + 0.472), also on the C5, lined up behind him. Lando Norris (McLaren / + 0.732) finished fourth. A C3 was mounted on it.
Mercedes initially stayed out of the action. Valtteri Bottas completed 47 laps and finished sixth, 1.144 seconds behind Vettel. He was satisfied with his C3 on his best lap. Seventh was Esteban Ocon (Renault / + 1,172) ahead of Kevin Magnussen (Haas / + 1,384).
Antonio Giovinazzi (9./+2.829) caused the most violent crash of the morning. The Alfa Romeo driver lost control in turn 4, hit the barriers and demolished the new rear wing. He could drag himself to the pits on his own. But the damage forced him to take a long break from driving. More than 16 laps were not possible.
(Live ticker and live timing F1 tests Barcelona 2020: click here!)
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