Lewis Hamilton will be driving once more for Mercedes tomorrow as they look to continue their preparations for the first race in Melbourne, while Kimi Raikkonen will get his first taste of the SF16-H with Ferrari.
Ferrari retain early supremacy as ultrasoft tyre is debuted
FERRARI maintained their scintillating testing pace as Mercedes continued to dominate in the mileage stakes.
With Nico Rosberg resuming driving duties from World Champion Lewis Hamilton, the Brackley based side continued to wrack up ominous levels of laps, as the German reached 172-almost 40 more than that of his next nearest challenger, the Williams of Valtteri Bottas.
Vettel’s fastest lap was set on the new Ultrasoft compound introduced for 2016 by Pirelli, with the four time Champion recording a 1:22.810, two seconds quicker than Rosberg who used the slower, Medium compound tyre to set his best lap of the day.
There were also encouraging signs for Silverstone based Force India as Sergio Perez (below) recorded the third fastest time of today’s test, his 1:23.650 was less than a second off of the Ferrari benchmark and set on the slower, Supersoft tyre.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images Sport
As well as the impressive pace the Mexican completed 101 laps in the new VJM09, with team mate Nico Hulkenburg resuming driving duties on Wednesday.
New team for 2016 Haas (below), based just outside Northamptonshire in Banbury also impressed on only the VF-16’s second outing, as Esteban Gutierrez completed 79 laps and recorded the day’s sixth fastest time with a 1:25.524, quicker than fellow Banbury based side Manor Racing who ended the day with a 1:25.925, good enough for the eighth fastest time.
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