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Raikkonen fastest as McLaren hit trouble on day four

25 Feb 2016

Kimi Raikkonen made full use of Pirelli’s ultrasoft tyres to send Ferrari back to the top of the timesheets at Barcelona on Thursday morning, but it was a miserable session for McLaren as Fernando Alonso was only able to complete three laps because of an apparent water pressure issue.

Raikkonen’s time of 1m 23.477s was the third quickest of the week so far, and left him a full 1.786s clear of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen, who used the soft tyres to go second fastest and also added a further 67 laps to the 111 he managed on Wednesday.

Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen was third quickest at the lunchbreak as he enjoyed his second run-out in the new STR11, just ahead of stablemate Daniil Kvyat’s Red Bull, Felipe Nasr’s 2015-spec Sauber and Lewis Hamilton’s seemingly bulletproof Mercedes.

In another ominous display, the world champion almost broke into triple figures for laps, clocking 99 tours in an F1 W07 Hybrid fitted with an 's-duct' for the first time. Nico Rosberg will undoubtedly look to match that lap tally when he takes over in the Silver Arrow this afternoon.

Elsewhere, Rio Haryanto had another encouraging morning for Manor, posting the eight quickest time and logging 43 laps, but it was a much quieter session for newcomers Haas, who completed just 26 laps with Esteban Gutierrez at the wheel.

The opening pre-season test of the year concludes this afternoon.

 
Thursday morning's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS

Driver

Team/Car

Best lap

Gap

Laps

1

Kimi Raikkonen

Ferrari SF16-H

1:23.447

 

58

2

Kevin Magnussen

Renault R.S.16

1:25.263

1.786

67

3

Max Verstappen

Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11

1:25.393

1.916

75

4

Daniil Kvyat

Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12

1:25.900

2.423

57

5

Felipe Nasr

Sauber-Ferrari C34

1:26.053

2.576

50

6

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid

1:26.295

2.818

99

7

Alfonso Celis

Force India-Mercedes VJM09

1:26.875

3.398

36

8

Felipe Massa

Williams-Mercedes FW38

1:28.266

4.789

43

9

Esteban Gutierrez

Haas-Ferrari VF-16

1:28.684

5.207

33

10

Rio Haryanto

Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05

1:29.088

5.611

26

11

Fernando Alonso

McLaren-Honda MP4-31

No time

 

3