Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc blitzed the field on the second and final day of post-season testing at Abu Dhabi, edging Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly by a margin of 1.466s.
It was a good performance and working session for the Mongasque’s first day as a Ferrari driver, Leclerc beating Sebastian Vettel’s benchmark time from Tuesday by over three tenths of a second.
2018 Abu Dhabi post-season tyre test – Day 2 times
1
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
1:36.450
135
2
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull
1:37.916
129
3
Lance Stroll
Force India
1’38.044
122
4
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
1:38.488
143
5
Carlos Sainz
McLaren
1:38.547
150
6
Artem Markelov
Renault
1:38.590
129
7
George Russell
Williams
1:38.802
55
8
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:38.862
155
9
Louis Deletraz
Haas
1:39.069
117
10
Antonio Giovinazzi
Sauber
1:40.435
128
11
Robert Kubica
Williams
1:44.209
39
All ten teams were on deck over the two days at Yas Marina, sampling Pirelli’s 2019 tyre range for the very first time.
While Gasly was well behind Leclerc, the Red Bull driver was a consistent runner, clocking in with 129 laps under his belt without any issues to report.
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Abu Dhabi pre-season test: Day 2 in pictures
Force India’s Lance Stroll was once again the third fastest driver, the Canadian setting his best time at the start of the afternoon segment.
Valtteri Bottas diligently ran through Mercedes’ development programme for the second successive day, while Carlos Sainz put in 150 laps for his first day at work with McLaren.
The Spaniard was closely followed on the timesheet by Renault’s Artem Markelov and Williams’ George Russell who took over from Robert Kubica in the final few hours of the day.
Louis Deletraz enjoyed his baptism of fire with Haas, and Antonio Giovinazzi took over from Kimi Raikkonen at Sauber, who clocked in with 127 laps and the tenth fastest lap on the last day of track action for 2018.
Testing will resume on February 18, 2019 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Here are the combined timed from the two sessions, supplied by Pirelli, and the relative compounds.
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