senor honda

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya:

Lewis Hamilton was due to drive during the morning session despite joking he wasn't looking forward to testing the wet tires. Speaking on Wednesday evening, Hamilton said: "I might fake a pulled muscle in the morning and let Valtteri do it."


As it transpired, Hamilton's services were not required as Mercedes investigated an electrical fault that kept the W08 in the garage for almost the entire morning session. While work was ongoing, Hamilton tweeted: "I've decided with the team not to drive today as I wouldn't have learned much," and Bottas took the car out for a short run before the lunch break.


The afternoon session was more productive for Mercedes, as Bottas got in some wet running and brought his lap tally up to 68 for the day. But the team noticed some unusual data and opted to end the test early to investigate further.


If there was a day Mercedes would have chosen to hit trouble, Thursday would have been it. Pirelli artificially soaked the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya overnight using huge water tankers, but teams completed limited mileage in cold and wet conditions during the morning session.


McLaren was the busiest team early on as Stoffel Vandoorne lapped to get further data with the Honda power unit, but its productivity dropped off later on to end the day with 67 laps and the seventh fastest time.
Another team to suffer problems earlier this week – Williams – failed to appear at all on the final day as it needed to repair its chassis. The team had found further damage overnight after Lance Stroll crashed late on Wednesday, and quickly ruled out any running.
It was joined in the garage by Toro Rosso as a Renault power unit problem limited Daniil Kvyat to a solitary installation lap at the start of the day. While the team changed the power unit in an attempt to get back out in the afternoon, it eventually ran out of time.
Despite the junior team's problems, there was further encouragement for Red Bull as Max Verstappen completed 85 laps and posted the second-fastest time. However, Verstappen was 0.9s off the Ferrari in a sign of how Red Bull is behind on its testing program compared to the Scuderia at this stage, even if outright pace is still unclear.
Verstappen ended the day 0.009s clear of Jolyon Palmer as Renault's works team ended the week on a high. Once again running was split between the two race drivers – with Nico Hulkenberg slowest of those to set a time in the morning – and Palmer finished Thursday afternoon half a second clear of Romain Grosjean as Haas again impressed as it completed 118 laps.
There were no red flags on a low-key day of track action due to the wet tire testing, with the circuit again soaked during the lunch break to allow further running for those teams who had suffered reliability problems in the morning. The track was then allowed to dry throughout the afternoon in order to analyze crossover points, with Pirelli's initial feedback showing the tire manufacturer needs to improve how easy it is to bring the wet compounds up to working temperature.