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At the second pre-season test of the 2015 Formula One season, Pastor Maldonado topped the first day of 2015 Formula 1 testing at Barcelona.
Pastor Maldonado used soft tyres to go fastest for Lotus-Mercedes on a Barcelona Formula 1 test day that was disrupted by a collision between Felipe Nasr and Susie Wolff.
The Williams and Sauber came together early in the afternoon session, when Wolff was on an out-lap and morning pacesetter Nasr was at full speed. There was contact between the Williams’s left front and Sauber’s right-rear sent Nasr into the Turn 5 barriers, with Wolff also coming to rest in the gravel.
Prior to the long red flag as a result of the incident between Wolff and Nasr, Kimi Raikkonen had established Ferrari on top of the timesheets, initially on Pirelli’s ‘winter hard’ and then using mediums to do a lap time of 1.25.167s.
Raikkonen stayed there until a flurry of soft-tyre runs in mid-afternoon, during which both Maldonado and Red Bull-Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo went out for short bursts on the faster rubber. Maldonado was quickest with a lap time of 1:25.011 and demoted the Ferrari of Raikkonen by 0.156s who finished in second place.
Daniel Ricciardo could only get within 0.380 seconds of Raikkonen and finished the session in third place ahead of Sergio Perez in fourth place who took over the 2014 Force India from on-loan Pascal Wehrlein after the German was recalled to the Mercedes team and Perez managed to fit in 34 laps as a result.
Both Nasr and Wolff managed to get back on track in their repaired cars late on, although the Sauber triggered a red flag in the last few minutes when it stopped on the approach to Turn 9. But Nasr still held on to fifth place in the standings with his morning time.
While Red Bull stuck to short runs, Toro Rosso hinted at reliability improvements for Renault as Max Verstappen topped the lap count on 94 which was eight more than second-best Wolff. Verstappen went sixth quickest during a very long afternoon run ahead of Jenson Button who finished in seventh place, despite the McLaren-Honda being sidelined while its engine was changed.
McLaren is set to be compromised by the same problems on Friday, as it waits for a faulty part to be updated in time for the weekend’s running.
Pascal Wehrlein occupied both eighth and ninth places in the results. His best time from relatively long runs on hard tyres for Mercedes was a tenth adrift of his morning pace for Force India.
Wehrlein had been summoned back to Mercedes duties because Lewis Hamilton had to stop after 11 laps in the morning due to a fever and his team-mate Nico Rosberg was unable to step in due to pain from a trapped nerve in his neck.
Day One Timesheet:-
1. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:25.011, 69 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:25.167, 74 laps
3. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:25.547, 59 laps
4. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:26.636, 34 laps
5. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1:27.307, 79 laps
6. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:27.900, 94 laps
7. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:28.182, 21 laps
8. Pascal Wehrlein, Force India, 1:28.329, 32 laps
9. Pascal Wehrlein, Mercedes, 1:28.489, 48 laps
10. Susie Wolff, Williams, 1:28.906, 86 laps
11. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:30.429, 11 laps.
Sarah Jones
