F1 Testing 2019: Day 5 Report

Lando Norris set the fastest time, but McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari all ran into trouble as testing resumed at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Here’s a round up of the action from Day 5!

Taking part in today’s session were Antonio Giovinazzi at Alfa Romeo, Kevin Magnussen at Haas, Lando Norris at McLaren, Lance Stroll at Racing Point, Pierre Gasly at Red Bull, Alex Albon at Toro Rosso and George Russell at Williams. Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault split driving duties for the day. Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg drove in the morning session for their respective teams, while Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, and Daniel Ricciardo took over in the afternoon.

Lando Norris ended the day fastest, but it wasn’t a trouble-free day for McLaren. A hydraulic issue in the morning saw Norris cause the first red flag of the day, with the issue costing the British rookie two hours of running. Norris then set the fastest time of the day with a 1:17.709 in the afternoon session, but soon stopped once again with around twenty minutes of the session remaining.

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There were two big-name teams who also missed out on a noteworthy amount of running today – Ferrari in the morning, and Mercedes in the afternoon. Charles Leclerc was able to complete only 29 laps in the morning session as Ferrari checked a cooling issue on the SF90. Valtteri Bottas’ stint in the pits this afternoon was considerably longer. He caused the second red flag period of the day after coming to a halt between the third and fourth turns on the Catalunya track, thirty minutes into the afternoon session. Mercedes brought a significantly revised car, with a new aero package, for the second week of testing – but they’ll have been unable to get much data from it this afternoon. The good news is that Bottas was able to get back out on track with ten minutes of the session remaining, after the team swapped the power unit in the W10. It means that they should have a trouble-free start to Day 6.

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Williams and Red Bull each enjoyed productive days. Williams completed over 100 laps with George Russell, setting much more comparatively competitive lap times to what they had done in their first two days of running last week. Red Bull also increased their speed with Pierre Gasly on board; the Frenchman setting the second fastest time in the morning session. It was Antonio Giovinazzi who was fastest in the morning, as Alfa Romeo continued to look strong in the midfield pack. Elsewhere, Renault completed the most laps today, with Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo racking up 157 laps between them. Ferrari have now completed more laps than any other team in testing in 2019, while Racing Point and Williams trail at the back of the field. You can find the full lap count from testing so far here.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

WINTER TESTING DAY 5 RESULT:

Testing continues at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya tomorrow. Follow @LightsOutF1Blog on Twitter for live updates throughout the day!