Kvyat tops third day of F1 pre-season testing

Daniil Kvyat topped the third day of Formula 1 pre-season testing for Toro Rosso after edging out Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen with a late lap.

In his second outing in the new Honda-powered Toro Rosso STR14, Kvyat managed to put in a late effort of 1m17.704s to take top spot for Wednesday’s running, setting the fastest time of pre-season so far in the process.

Kvyat’s lap knocked morning leader Raikkonen off the top of the timesheets, with the Finn ending the day 0.058 seconds further back in the Alfa Romeo C38 with 138 laps on the board.

Daniel Ricciardo was another late improver, rising to P3 for Renault as he split running with teammate Nico Hulkenberg once again.

Hulkenberg finished sixth-fastest, having completed the morning with no working DRS as the team continued to investigate Ricciardo’s Tuesday part failure. Ricciardo was able to head out with DRS functioning for the afternoon, completing 90 laps en route to P3.

Monday pace-setter Sebastian Vettel ended the day fourth for Ferrari, with the team curtailing its running before the end of the day. Vettel managed 134 laps in total in the SF90, and will return to the car next week as Charles Leclerc closes out the first test on Thursday. Max Verstappen took sixth for Red Bull with 109 laps completed.

Haas had a difficult day as it caused all three red flags that interrupted running due to stoppages with the VF-19 car. Pietro Fittipaldi stopped once in the morning before handing over to Romain Grosjean in the afternoon. Grosjean came to a halt twice on-track – once in the first hour, and once with five minutes left on the clock due to a loss of hydraulic pressure – sparking two red flags. Grosjean ended the day P7 overall ahead of Fittipaldi in P8.

Carlos Sainz Jr. managed 90 laps for McLaren en route to ninth place, having missed the opening 90 minutes of running as the team made changes to its car. Sainz briefly hit the gravel after spinning at Turn 14 in the morning, but kept his car going to avoid a red flag.

Sergio Perez took 10th for Racing Point ahead of the Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, who once again focused on long-run pace. The pair managed a combined total of 172 laps, more than any other team.

Williams made its first appearance in F1 testing after the FW42 car arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning. George Russell got the car out just after the lunch break, and although the team was still waiting on some parts, the Briton managed to complete 23 laps. He finished 4.8 seconds off the next-best driver.