Reliability issues surface on third day of testing

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

The afternoon session of the third day of testing at Barcelona revealed some reliability issues for some team, maybe somewhat unexpected given the impressive total amount of laps that the teams managed to complete on Tuesday.

In the morning session, teams appeared to have been limited to Ferrari, as Raikkonen only managed to complete 4 laps in 4 hours. He was mostly stuck in the garage as the team was working to resolve some overheating issues within the sidepods.

After the lunch break, it still took the Scuderia to 40 minutes before being to send the Finn out, but after that, things looked much better, resulting in a total of 78 laps and a third best laptime overall.

At McLaren Honda, the day started off well, with Button seemingly set for another major haul of laps, until a fire caused by a hydraulic leak put an end to that. Button saw his day end with 51 laps on the board as the team started to dismantle the car and repair the problem. While obviously not the plan, it doesn't mean there is a big issue yet at Honda, as the team continues to try out new components step by step to find the best package ahead of the start of the season. Mercedes on the other hand have revealed they are not going this, instead sticking to their plan of verifying reliability of the existing package.

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Williams were focusing on tyre work in the afternoon, until finding an oil leak in the engine compartment, similarly ending their day earlier. It meant that Massa's first day in the FW38 totalled 109 laps. Williams sure won't be too unhappy about that.

Renault's Magnussen did have a stoppage on track to create a red flag, but it didn't stop the team to make a quick turnaround and continue testing, ending the day with 111 laps, the most so far for the R.S.16.

Haas F1 Team and Force India also enjoyed smooth days, ending on top of the timesheet without encountering any major issues during the day.

Less at the top of best laptimes is Sainz, who managed to do 161 laps in the new Toro Rosso STR11. That's nearly as much as Mercedes who had another perfect day with 162 laps split among its drivers. Mercedes decided it would be best to change drivers halfway through the day, both today and on Thursday to not strain the drivers too much. Split up, they're still completing more than a race distance each (66 laps).