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Lunch update | Mercedes flex their muscles as red flags plague test

25 February 2022 at 12:01
Last update 25 February 2022 at 13:22
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  • GPblog.com

Mercedes finished the final morning session as the fastest in Barcelona. With George Russell behind the wheel they drove to the fastest time of the entire test week, in a session that was interrupted several times by problems at other teams. Alpine and Alfa Romeo, among others, were forced to retire their cars and this caused many red flags in Spain.

This morning at 08:00 [UK time] precisely the light went green for the last test day in Barcelona. On that third day it was Max Verstappen who was quick to show off on the track. On Thursday Red Bull Racing lost valuable time due to problems with Sergio Perez. On Friday morning these problems were repeated by other teams. No less than four red flags were waved because of an incident on the track.

The first red flag was for the Alpine of Fernando Alonso. After he already made a trip across the gravel in the opening hour of the test day, white smoke came out of the Spaniard's car, forcing him to pull over his blue-pink car as a precaution. Alpine later announced that the problems definitively prevented them from participating in the test day in the afternoon.

Problems at Red Bull and Haas

The teams have been dealing with the jumping up of the car on the straight since Wednesday. Because of the downward pressure, the car bounces a lot at high speed and also on Friday teams like Red Bull seemed to suffer from that porpoising. Other teams like Williams and Mercedes seemed to have the bouncing under control a bit more.

At Haas, the morning session didn't go quite as planned either. Due to a leak, Nikita Mazepin was stuck in the garage for a long time. All eyes were on the American team today, because of their main sponsor, the Russian UralKali. Because of that main sponsor, Mazepin got his spot at Haas, but because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions from America in response to that invasion, the Russian's future at Haas seems anything but certain.

Mercedes up to speed

What does seem certain is that Mercedes and Red Bull are well-matched again this year. In the morning, it was George Russell behind the wheel of the reigning world champions in the constructors' field, and he did an excellent job too. On the C3 tyre, the middle tyre brought by Pirelli, Russell and Verstappen exchanged very fast times.

They were able to do so until the second red flag caused a break. Pierre Gasly who was in the wall at Turn 5, at the beginning of the second sector. Due to a driver error, he hit the wall, which also meant we had the first real crash with visible damage this year.

Red flags ruin final phase of morning session

At noon, the session was finally restarted for the final hour, but it wasn't long before all the drivers had to head back to the pit lane. Guanyu Zhou, this season's only rookie, stalled in Turn 10 and the Alfa Romeo driver had to be pulled out of the gravel trap. In the final phase, all teams wanted to give it a try, to collect as much data as possible on a dry track.

The afternoon session of the last test day will be held on a wet track. In the lunch break the track will be made wet, so the drivers can test on the rain tyres. Important for the teams, but also for Pirelli to get data on those tyre.

In the last forty-five minutes of the morning session, the C5 tyre finally came into its own. The softest tyre of this year and on which the drivers can go the fastest, was used first by George Russell. He immediately set the fastest time of all test days so far. He did so just before Zhou caused another red flag. This time he stood still in the first sector. Shortly after, it was Sebastian Vettel's turn. He stopped his Aston Martin in the last sector, completely ruining the last few minutes of the morning session.

The times of the morning session: