Max in P4: “Despite issue, not unhappy”

Published on 08 March 2017 by Mike Motilall

Tuesday team mate Daniel Ricciardo kicked off the second pre-season testing in Barcelona, today it was Max Verstappen’s turn to make some mileage in the RB13. It didn’t all go as planned. With a mere 34 laps it wasn’t an all too productive morning for Red Bull Racing. Valtteri Bottas topped the board in his Mercedes (1:19.310), followed by Felipe Massa, who parked his Williams on the second spot.

After the morning session, Max has a chat with Verstappen.nl. “Up until the issue everything was going smoothly. Things felt good. We were making different adjustments to get the car to perform better. We can be happy about that so far. Compared to last week, we are running a different test schedule, but I can notice some good progress.”

When the early session gets underway at nine ‘o clock, Max is the early bird on track. He starts with Pirelli’s softs and switches to the mediums after an hour-and-a-half. Max heads back in numerous times and the team makes use of that time to practice their pit stops. The RB13 is also treated with flow-viz, a green paint, with which the airflow over the car can be mapped.

After the first two hours have passed, the Dutchman has a decent amount of laps to his name, 29 to be exact. Moreover, at that moment, on the softs, he clocks the fastest time, 1:20.516.

During the morning session, Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes is the first to better Max’ time, moments later followed by Felipe Massa, who puts his Williams in second. Both drivers set a time under the 1:20. Bottas does a quick 1:19.310. Nobody has been that fast during this winter in Barcelona.

In the final 30 minutes of the session, Kimi Raikkonen also passes Max. The experienced Fin demotes the youngster to P4, while the Dutchman was in the pits for an extended period of time. The Red Bull Racing mechanics execute an engine change on the RB13 that will have them busy till about 14.30 hrs.

Pre-Season Test 2 - Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluyna - Wednesday 8 March 2017

RESULTS DAY 2 – Morning

1.	Bottas		Mercedes	  1:19.310		67		
2.	Massa		Williams	  1:19.420	+0.110	63		
3.	Raikkonen	Ferrari		  1:20.406	+1.096	35		
4.	Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	  1:20.432	+1.122	34	
5.	Hülkenberg	Renault		  1:21.213	+1.903	58		
6.	Perez		Force India	  1:21.297	+1.987	49	
7.  	Sainz		Toro Rosso	  1:21.872	+2.562	42		
8.	Grosjean	Haas		  1:22.428	+3.118	51		
9.	Wehrlein	Sauber	          1:23.000	+3.690	55		
10.	Alonso		McLaren	          1:23.041	+3.731	27