Formula One: Stroll 13th… Winter testing over, bring on Australia

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE ON THE TIME SHEET FOLLOWING THE SECOND WEEK OF WINTER TESTING

SportPesa Racing Point concluded their testing Friday with Sergio Perez at the wheel. Lance Stroll had driven on Thursday improving on his Tuesday time with a lap of 1:17.556. Again, teams were running different programmes although almost everyone tried to put in a time with the softest compound available from Pirelli.

Lance looks forward to Australia: “It’s been another positive day in the car and a good way to finish my pre-season programme. We covered a lot of kilometres today – the most I’ve done on a single day all winter – and now I am really looking forward to going racing”, Lance said. “We are going to keep learning about our new car and we are going to bring the best possible package to Melbourne. It’s really tough to predict where we stand once we start racing: everyone is working on different programmes, but I start the season with a positive mindset.”

Pirelli had brought five different compounds to the winter test. Code names going from C1(hardest) to C5(softest). To put things in perspective according to Pirelli, at the time of winter testing, the performance difference would be as follow:

C1 to C2 would be between 0.8 to 1.0 second. C2 to C3 about 0.7 second. C3 to C4 is 0.6 second and C4 to C5 0.6 seconds.

Also dependent of fuel load at the time of running combined with the tire choices, here are the results of the second week of testing.

1- Sebastien Vettel Ferrari 1:16.221 C5

2- Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:16.224 C5

3- Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:16.231 C5

4- Valtteri Bota Mercedes 1:16.561 C5

5- Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:16.843 C5

6- Alexander Albon Toro Rosso 1:16.882 C5

7- Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:16.898 C5

8- Carlos Sainz McLaren 1:16.913 C5

9- Romain Grosjean Haas 1:17.076 C5

10- Lando Norris McLaren 1:17.084 C5

11- Pierre Gasly Red Bull 1:17.091 C5

12- Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1:17.114 C5

13- Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 1:17.239 C5

14- Lance Stroll Racing Point 1:17.556 C5

15- Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:17.565 C5

16- Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 1:17.639 C5

17- Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:17.709 C3

18- Sergio Perez Racing Point 1:17.791 C5

19 – George Russell Williams 1:18.130 C5

20- Robert Kubica Williams 1:18.993 C5

For the coming season, a choice of three different compounds will be made as to what Pirelli offers and will be track dependent. They will be called hard, medium and soft.

Only two weeks to go before the first Grand Prix in Australia on the weekend of March 15-17.

Images: SportPesa Racing Point