Posted on 27th January 2016
The second and final day of Pirelli's we-weather tyre test at the Paul Ricard circuit yesterday saw Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel was quickest ahead of Daniil Kvyat and Stoffel Vandoorne.
With Vettel taking over driving duties from his team mate Kimi Raikkonen in the cockpit of last year’s SF15-T, he topped the timesheets with a lap time of 1.06.750. He was ahead of Red Bull driver Daniil Kvyat who replaced his team mate Daniel Ricciardo and was less than a tenth of a second behind Vettel.
However, Vandoorne ended his driving duties for the McLaren-Honda in third place, just over a second behind the pace of Vettel.
The two-day test was conducted with the aid of the sprinkler system built into the Paul Ricard track, which artificially soaked the asphalt. This then allowed Pirelli to test different combinations of different treads and compounds of prototype full-wet tyres and running intermediates in yesterday's test.
Pirelli has been working on improving the longevity and performance of its wet tyre and is set to introduce changes to its rubber this year as a result of the data gained at the test.
With Pirelli clocking up almost 1500 miles over its two days of wet-tyre testing, although times were irrelevant for the purposes of this test. The three teams chosen for the test and running in unmodified 2015-spec machinery; completed 374 laps in total, 89 more than on Monday, and a total of 659 laps overall.
F1’s next on-track action will be at the first of two pre-season tests for the new-for-2016 machinery at Barcelona’s Catalunya circuit on February 22-25, with the second test on March 1-4.
Day Two Timesheet:-
1.Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1.06.750, 134 laps
2.Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, +0.083s, 113 laps
3.Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren-Honda, +1.008s, 127 laps
Keep your eyes peeled at Driving for Pleasure for the 2016 F1 car launches and also the pre-season tests next month.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
