Jerez Testing – Day 4: Räikkönen Finishes the Tests on Top
For the fourth and final day of testing at Jerez, it was Kimi Räikkönen who finished on top driving the Lotus E21.
Kimi Räikkönen finished the private tests held in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, at the top. The Finnish driver follows his teammate Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean, and Felipe Massa. Behind *Iceman*, we find Jules Bianchi driving the Force India and Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull.
On the side of interruptions, the teams had their share today. It started with Pedro de la Rosa’s Ferrari, which was forced to stop on the track due to a gearbox problem. The Spanish driver still completed the day with 51 laps. Shortly after this first red flag, Esteban Gutiérrez caused a second one by stopping on the track, but nothing serious for the Sauber driver, who was able to resume the track 30 minutes later.
The longest interruption was due to debris beyond a curb and the presence of a hole, which was patched up. The session was interrupted for about an hour, and the teams were given an additional 30 minutes of testing as compensation.
On the track attendance side, it’s Lewis Hamilton who spent the most time on the asphalt, with the Mercedes driver finishing the day with 145 laps, just three more than Esteban Gutiérrez, who completed a race simulation and ended up with 142 laps. Behind these two men, we have Charles Pic with a total of 109 laps today.
If you want to know in detail what happened today, you can relive the day’s events.
The ranking of the last F1 test day held in Jerez
| No | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
1 | Räikkönen | Lotus F1 Team | 1:18.148 | 83 | |
2 | Bianchi | Sahara Force India | 1:18.175 | +0.027 | 56 |
3 | Vettel | Red Bull Racing | 1:18.565 | +0.417 | 96 |
4 | Gutierrez | Sauber F1 Team | 1:18.669 | +0.521 | 142 |
5 | Vergne | Scuderia Toro Rosso | 1:18.760 | +0.612 | 92 |
6 | Hamilton | Mercedes AMG F1 | 1:18.905 | +0.757 | 145 |
7 | Perez | McLaren Mercedes | 1:18.944 | +0.796 | 98 |
8 | Bottas | Williams F1 Team | 1:19.851 | +1.703 | 92 |
9 | De la Rosa | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:20.316 | +2.168 | 51 |
10 | Pic | Caterham F1 Team | 1:21.105 | +2.957 | 109 |
11 | Razia | Marussia F1 Team | 1:21.226 | +3.078 | 82 |
12 | di Resta | Sahara Force India | 1:23.435 | +5.287 | 49 |
From our special correspondent in Jerez