Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow has today finished off its six days of pre-season testing with the SF1000 at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. Charles Leclerc was at the wheel of the car that will compete in the new Formula 1 season that gets under way on March 15 in Australia. On the final day of testing he rounded off the programme with a simulation of a race weekend, just like Sebastian Vettel had done yesterday. Over the course of this second set of three days of testing the car has completed a total of 490 laps (2,281 kilometres). That means the SF1000 will arrive to the season-opener with a total of 844 laps (3,929 kilometres; 13 GP) under its belt.
Morning. The Monegasque driver made his way into the cockpit this morning at 9am on the dot, before leaving the garage a couple of minutes later for an installation lap on the C2 tyres. Having come back into the pits, the mechanics carried out their usual checks before starting off the race weekend simulation – going out on C3, C4 and C5 tyres. Shortly before the lunch break, Leclerc carried out a simulation of the three sessions of qualifying, setting his own best time of the day with a lap of 1’16”360. He finished the morning with a total of 76 laps.
Afternoon. Over the course of the afternoon session the team continued with its race simulation. Charles used only C2 tyres, covering the race distance of 66 laps without any issues. Then, to get the most out of the time available, Charles returned to the track – after the car was checked and freshened up – for another series of runs aimed at collecting data to analyse certain components of the car. Overall, in the course of this second session of tests, Leclerc has completed a total of 181 laps, equal to 843 kilometres. The Monegasque driver will therefore arrive at the first race of the 2020 season having already driven a total of 261 laps (2,058 kilometres), the equivalent of the race distance of seven Grands Prix.
Two weeks to go. The next time the cars will take to the track will be in Australia on Friday 13 March, when the first free practice sessions of the 2020 F1 season will take place on the street circuit of Melbourne’s Albert Park.
Mattia Binotto, Team Principal
“I am satisfied with how these winter tests have gone, from the completed programme to the way the team has worked. We approached these two test sessions in a very different way from last year, using the first three days to get to know our car in all the possible configurations.
Over the last two days, we have carried out race weekend simulations with Sebastian and Charles. I believe the performance over a dry lap isn’t yet where we want it to be – while the indications are relatively better when it comes to reliability and long runs too, albeit not yet positive enough.
We will head back to Maranello with a huge amount of data to analyse in the knowledge that we have a range of work to do. But as a team we feel ready for the Australian Grand Prix, which will give us a clearer idea of where we stand.”