On the sixth day of pre-season testing teams stepped up their evaluation of the 2018 cars, focusing more on race pace and long-run programmes.
Nearly every squad bettered their previous best time from the week. The main outlier was McLaren, who lost a large portion of running today and slipped down the timing sheets, although they still managed to post a lap marginally quicker—just 0.002s—than their earlier best.
Almost all teams have now recorded laps faster than their best times from last year’s race weekend. Ferrari remains the exception: their quickest time today came on the soft compound, which corresponds to the four-softest tyre allocation this year rather than the new hyper-soft option.
Daniel Ricciardo set the pace today using the new hyper-soft tyre, and Ferrari fans will be keen to see an SF71H run on the pink-marked rubber to accurately compare performance.
How much quicker are they than last year?
Renault appear likely to show notable improvement once they complete more performance runs. They are already around 1.3 seconds inside their best time from last year’s race weekend while running on medium tyres; fitting softer compounds should yield even bigger gains.
The Renault team also plans to introduce additional bodywork upgrades before the end of the test, so the pace of the yellow car is one to watch as the week progresses.
Mileage watch
With two test days remaining, teams such as Mercedes and Ferrari are unlikely to reach their 2017 mileage totals because poor weather last week cost them significant running time.
By contrast, teams like Red Bull and Sauber should be able to surpass last year’s pre-season mileage if their cars remain reliable for the final sessions. McLaren could potentially do the same, but their recurring problems today pushed them back down the distance charts.
2018 pre-season testing so far
| Team | Distance |
|---|---|
| Mercedes | 3016.4km |
| Renault | 2802.3km |
| Ferrari | 2709.2km |
| Sauber | 2620.8km |
| Williams | 2537km |
| Red Bull | 2346.1km |
| Toro Rosso | 2313.5km |
| Force India | 1810.8km |
| Haas | 1671.1km |
| McLaren | 1643.2km |
2017 pre-season testing total
| Team | Distance |
|---|---|
| Mercedes | 5101.9km |
| Ferrari | 4445.5km |
| Williams | 3724km |
| Sauber | 3663.5km |
| Force India | 3654.2km |
| Red Bull | 3184km |
| Haas | 3170.1km |
| Renault | 2774.4km |
| Toro Rosso | 2718.5km |
| McLaren | 2127.3km |
2018 F1 season
- F1 feared “death knell” for Drive to Survive after Ferrari and Mercedes snub
- McLaren staff told us they were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
- ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
- Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
- McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
Browse all 2018 F1 season articles