Kimi Raikkonen posts fastest time during Thursday's test in Barcelona
Kimi Raikkonen topped the times on the penultimate day of Formula One testing in Barcelona as Ferrari hinted at the potential of its new car by setting the best time of the winter.
The Finn did a quick lap on soft tires before switching to the new ultrasoft, on which he recorded a best time of 1:22.765.
"It was one of our best days of testing," said Raikkonen. "We could run without a single stop, except for the red flags on track. Maybe we could have been faster on some laps, but in general the feeling was fine and we are more or less happy with the way things are going. Of course there's always room to improve and work to do. Like I said many times, I don't like guessing so there's no point in figuring out where we'll be in Melbourne. We will try our best as always."
Raikkonen also made headlines early in the day when he briefly ran a prototype version of the "Halo" cockpit protection device.
"The difference to the usual driving was surprisingly small," Raikkonen said. "The visibility is just a little bit limited at the front but I don't think this is the final version of the device, so it can be improved further."
Felipe Massa set the second best time of the day for Williams, some 0.4 seconds behind the pacesetter, but while using the soft tires.
Nico Hulkenberg and Max Verstappen were next up on the ultrasoft -- with the Dutchman running an impressive 159 laps as Toro Rosso again showed good reliability.
It was a low-key day for Mercedes as the team continued to log miles. Nico Rosberg was fifth and Lewis Hamilton only 11th -- both men running mediums and later focusing on long runs.
"It's been really great splitting the days over testing because it feels like we're testing on eight days rather than just four with how it's worked out," said Hamilton." The team has done a fantastic job with the car and we feel that we're probably in a stronger position than last year, especially after the mileage we've done.
"We've still not pushed the car to the limit though, to really find how to balance it on the knife edge on the timed lap, but personally I feel comfortable right now. It's kind of like building a pyramid, where the single-lap performance is the very pinnacle of the whole thing. At the moment we are building the base with our long running during testing -- and the bigger the base, the higher you can ultimately go."
Jolyon Palmer lost time with a Renault gearbox problem early in the day, but later he was able to make up for the lost time.
"I watched Kevin notch-up so many laps over the past few days that when my day didn't start to plan I was thinking 'why me?!'," Palmer said. "Once we sorted the gearbox problem it was great to complete a race simulation without issues. The car feels good and it was annoying to miss out on 100 laps for the day by a mere two laps. I think the team has made good progress with the car since we arrived here last week. I'm looking forward to getting some lower fuel runs as well as a full programme tomorrow."
Romain Grosjean had a torrid day for Haas F1 Team, as the Frenchman went off the road twice and finished at the bottom of the time chart. He ran 78 laps after teammate Esteban Gutierrez didn't do a flying lap on Thursday.
Full results from Thursday's test session:
