F1 – Barcelona preseason – Day 5
The second week of winter test arrived at Barcelona with good weather and a few updates for some teams. Let’s check out what happened during the 5th day of preseason at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Pascal Wehrlein made his debut with Sauber after missing the first week of winter test due a back pain caused by a crash with Felipe Massa during the Race of Champions. Also McLaren brought the engine that they will use in Australia for the second week of test, but they said they didn’t use it yet. Palmer had problems with his Renault because we saw him entering to the pits with his engine off. After two hours of test, the only drive who didn’t make any timed lap was Wehrlein, but he made 11 laps with his Sauber, it wasn’t until 11:30 when he made his first time, quite slow comparing with his rivals, but it was his first day driving his new car. Massa made the fastest lap of the day at midday with a time of 1:19.726, one of the fastest times of the week. During the lunch break McLaren said that they found an electric problem with their engine… Which was not the new one, it was last week’s engine.
During the afternoon session, we had some changes in some teams, Mercedes, Sauber and Renault changed their drivers for the afternoon at Barcelona. The second part of the day was perfect to make a race simulation. Massa and Vettel were the drivers with more laps during the fifth day of testing, with 168 laps, and close to them Ocon with 142 laps. The afternoon was also very productive for McLaren who made with Vandoorne a total of 80 laps with so many aero test on the MCL-32. The day was really quite, with only one red flag caused by Nico Hulkenberg who stopped his car at the third sector of the track, but just when we reached the end of the session.
Still so much work for Renault and McLaren who had problems with their engines, while Mercedes and Ferrari were showing a lot of strenght. Who knows what would happen tomorrow at the 6th day of winter test, but we will be here to tell you what happened. Stay tuned for more updates.