Charles Leclerc ensured Ferrari ended fastest on two of the three days of pre-season testing, although the final morning’s running was again impacted by drain failures.
The track was red flagged after just 27 minutes of the opening session as another drain had lifted on the entry to Turn 11. The failure was located just a matter of yards further along the entry curb from where the same problem occurred on day two, but on this occasion it took over an hour to carry out repairs.
Once the track reopened at 11:45 local time, the decision was made to run uninterrupted through to 7pm rather than have the usual pause for lunch, in order to make up for lost time.
Conditions were the best of the three days as the wind strength dropped and provided more consistency from lap-to-lap, but in another example of the varied run plans that teams opt for during testing, the lap times were slower than Thursday, with Leclerc’s 1m30.322s nearly 0.4s off teammate Carlos Sainz’s best of the week.
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Like Sainz, Leclerc used the C4 tire to post his time, and he was joined at the top by George Russell who also used the C4, ending up 0.046s adrift. Speaking after driving in the morning session, teammate Lewis Hamilton backed up Russell’s view that the W15 was a nicer car to drive than its predecessor, and offers Mercedes a more solid platform to build from.
Zhou Guanyu was third after his own late C4 lap, following Russell in the final half hour of running when the track was at its fastest. It did round out an encouraging afternoon for Stake, given Zhou managed 85 laps after taking over from Valtteri Bottas.
Those late efforts pushed Max Verstappen down to fourth place, albeit with his 1m30.755s coming on the C3 tire and much earlier in the day than the two cars immediately ahead of him. The Red Bull driver took over from teammate Sergio Perez and added 66 laps to the three figures he managed on an impressive opening day.
“If it would have been worse then we did a very bad job!” Verstappen said of the RB20. “For sure the car is better than last year’s car, but I think everyone on the grid has a better car than last year.”
Yuki Tsunoda was fifth for Visa Cash App RB and only 0.02s adrift of Verstappen, though he was another who used the C4 compound. Alex Albon was the only driver to exceed 100 laps on Friday as Williams was the sole team to not split running, and his sixth-fastest time was joined by Oscar Piastri and Fernando Alonso of the afternoon runners who were all within 0.85s of the quickest time.
There were encouraging signs from Haas on the final day, with long runs taking Nico Hulkenberg up to 89 laps and a best time of 1m31.686s. While that in itself might appear unremarkable, the 2024 car’s race pace was solid and team principal Ayao Komatsu told RACER that Haas modified its schedule on Friday as it found itself slightly ahead of where it expected during its testing program.
Despite more solid pace, McLaren endured another frustrating spell due to reliability issues. After interruptions on Thursday, it was more of the same as Lando Norris had to end his running after just 20 laps in the morning. A clutch problem needed investigating and the decision was made to switch to Piastri once the car could be repaired. The Australian rookie did manage 91 laps after lunch to finish on a higher note.
