McLaren set the pace for a second day in succession, while a mechanical failure caused a crash for Sebastian Vettel and kept Ferrari off-track for most of the afternoon. Here’s a round up of all the action from Day 6!
Taking part in today’s session were Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo, Romain Grosjean at Haas, Carlos Sainz at McLaren, Sergio Perez at Racing Point, Max Verstappen at Red Bull, Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso and Robert Kubica at Williams. Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault split driving duties for the day. Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo drove in the morning session for their respective teams, while Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Hulkenberg took over in the afternoon.
It was a highly disrupted morning session. Firstly, Carlos Sainz set the fastest time of the test so far, with a time of 1:17.144 which would fail to be beaten for the rest of the day. Sainz’s first sector time of 21.753 seconds was the best first sector time seen so far in testing, though he failed to beat the two previous best sector two and three times, set by Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg respectively on Day 4. Just after the Spaniard set his speedy lap, the MCL34 stopped on track – the result of a loss of water pressure. It was a quick turnaround for the team though, as McLaren got the car back on track just twenty minutes later.
Two hours into the session, there was another red flag. This time, Max Verstappen had come to a stop after a practice start near the end of the pit-lane. It didn’t stop the Dutch driver from completing another 45 laps in the first hour of the afternoon session, though he was stuck in the garage for two hours later on due to a change of gearbox being required on the RB15.
The third and final red flag period of the morning came just minutes after Verstappen’s stoppage, as Sebastian Vettel crashed between turns three and four. The crash was caused by a mechanical failure, though Ferrari are being coy on what exactly the failure was, and restricted the team’s running for the rest of the day. Charles Leclerc appeared on track for only an out-lap in the last ten minutes of the afternoon session. After becoming the first Ferrari driver to cause a red flag in testing so far this year, Vettel was taken to the medical centre as a precaution, but was fine. The red flag period lasted 40 minutes as the barriers had to be repaired.
The afternoon session mostly saw teams focusing on long runs, though there were a few improvements in lap times throughout the field – including from Sergio Perez, who set Racing Point’s best time of testing so far. Despite Ferrari and Red Bull’s lack of running, today saw 1,157 laps completed in total, the most from any of the six days of testing. McLaren, Red Bull, Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo, Toro Rosso, Mercedes and Renault (who ran an interesting contraption on their front wing) all completed over 100 laps today.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
WINTER TESTING DAY 6 RESULT:
| Pos | Driver | Lap Time | Tyre | Laps | |
| 1 | Carlos Sainz | 1:17.144 | C4 | 130 | Day 6 |
| 2 | Sergio Perez | 1:17.842 | C5 | 88 | Day 6 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | 1:18.195 | C3 | 40 | Day 6 |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | 1:18.209 | C4 | 113 | Day 6 |
| 5 | Romain Grosjean | 1:18.330 | C5 | 120 | Day 6 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | 1:18.395 | C3 | 128 | Day 6 |
| 7 | Daniil Kvyat | 1:18.682 | C4 | 101 | Day 6 |
| 8 | Valtteri Bottas | 1:18.941 | C3 | 74 | Day 6 |
| 9 | Lewis Hamilton | 1:18.943 | C3 | 102 | Day 6 |
| 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | 1:19.056 | C3 | 58 | Day 6 |
| 11 | Robert Kubica | 1:19.367 | C5 | 130 | Day 6 |
| 12 | Daniel Ricciardo | 1:22.597 | C1 | 72 | Day 6 |
| 13 | Charles Leclerc | no time | 1 | Day 6 |
Testing continues at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya tomorrow. Follow @LightsOutF1Blog on Twitter for live updates throughout the day!
