Recently, the two Ferrari’s of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen have been giving Mercedes a little bit of a battle. But considering that the duo have closed in on Nico Rosberg, they have never been near to Lewis Hamilton. And Friday practice at the Circuit de Catalunya proved that this was the key as the Briton responded in the afternoon session with a time of 1: 26:852, bettering Vettel by four tenths of a second in preparation for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.
The morning and first session was no different for Mercedes, except it was Rosberg who just edged Hamilton 0.070 seconds, but during one of his laps, he went into the wrong side of the bollard on entering the pit lane. The incident is being under investigation. Meanwhile, the two Ferraris were third and fourth, with Vettel and Raikkonen placing respectively.
Although Renault were hoping they could fix the reliability problems at this race, Daniel Ricciardo did not have too much luck and only turned a couple of laps in before coming into the pits to fix an issue. Ricciardo managed to fix the problem but finished ninth, two positions behind teammate Dani Kvyat. The other supplied team, Toro Rosso, are proving that their cars can do better with the French engine inside as Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen finished the session in fifth and sixth, respectively. As for McLaren Honda, their new paint livery was the talk of the town, but the results of the latest updates did not do much with Fernando Alonso taking 15th and teammate Jenson Button right behind him.
The second and afternoon session had no action until 20 minutes when Lotus pilot Romain Grosjean had his engine cover fly off at the start/finish line, extracting debris all over the track. It brought out a quick red flag until the marshals promptly cleaned up the carbon fiber parts. After complaining earlier in the morning, Button at last found a quick lap late in the session, and placed his McLaren Honda in seventh. It was a rare sight and even Kvyat recovered as well and took fifth in his Red Bull.
Ricciardo did not fix his opening morning engine problems until late in the session, when he managed to finish in a disappointing 13th place. But the real upgrades did not occur on teams as Sauber, Manor or even Force India as their budgets are beginning to show, especially among Sauber alone, who have impressed this season with regular point finishing abilities.