After a quiet test day on Wednesday, at the premiere of the new F1 2022 rules , on Thursday we already experienced the first two red flags, before this Friday, on the last morning of these tests, we have witnessed another five that have complicated the action on the track.
The first was by a Fernando Alonso who, shortly after leaving, suffered an off track in the third sector, as a harbinger of a session to forget. The Spaniard did not damage the car there, and after the checks in the box he went back out on the track to take first place with a time of 1:21.242 with C3 (medium) tires when 40 minutes of practice had not yet been completed.
However, before reaching the first hour, the Asturian had to stop his car at turn 13 after a hydraulic pressure problem that ended up causing the Renault power unit of his Alpine to catch fire, leaving behind a tremendous window of smoke that the commissioners had to suffocate quickly.
That’s where the session ended for the Spaniard, who on Thursday celebrated the power of the new engine but who could only do 12 laps this Friday. In fact, Alpine later confirmed that the team day was over, so Esteban Ocon will not be able to get in the car this afternoon.
When almost 15 minutes later the activity resumed, Max Verstappen, who at nine in the morning had been the first to go out on the track, stopped the clock at 1:20.683 with C3 tires to get first, and there seemed to calm down with long runs for multiple teams. George Russell took second after the first half and dropped to just one tenth of the world champion. Lando Norris was the third to break the 1m21 barrier, before Verstappen stepped up a second to the rest with a lap of 1m19.765s on C3 tyres.
Williams staged a bizarre change of drivers, dropping Alexander Albon from the car and putting Nicholas Latifi on. The Canadian surprised by rising to third place on C3 tires in his first few laps. For its part, the Haas F1 Team announced a ‘suspicious leak’ in his car that stopped the session of a Nikita Mazepin who had only been able to do 9 laps up to that moment.
Haas, in fact, has been one of the leading teams this Friday. After announcing yesterday that they would remove the stickers of their sponsor Uralkali and the Russian colors of their car, on this third day they have appeared with a completely white single-seater and making it clear on their social networks that white and black (and not blue and red of the Russian flag) were its colors.
They revealed that Mazepin would not speak to the media and its director, Gunther Steiner , appeared in the press room, admitting that they will study whether to continue with that sponsor and seemed to confirm that they can go ahead without him.
Meanwhile on the track, with an hour and a half before the break, George Russell mounted soft tires (C4) on his Mercedes to take first place with a time of 1:19.608. Verstappen responded and managed to stay within a tenth despite using means. And after that, Pierre Gasly caused the second red flag of the day.
The Frenchman went off track at Turn 5 and damaged the AlphaTauri, forcing the tow truck back to work, recovering his car and returning it to the garage. The session would resume at 12:00, with an hour to go, but we really couldn’t see much.
And it is that shortly after showing the green flag, Guanyu Zhou went off track after spinning at turn 10, causing the third red of the day. A message appeared on the screens that the session would resume at 12:22 p.m., which would leave 38 minutes to shoot, but again the Chinese rookie, less than 20 minutes later, caused the fourth red flag.
After a stormy last hour, most of the drivers took to the track to do their last runs, and there we saw the debut of the ultrasoft tire (C5) on Russell’s Mercedes, which allowed him to drop to 1:19.233 and leave a difference of half a second with Verstappen, despite the fact that the Dutchman had used tires two harder compounds.
Vettel also made use of the C5s to move up to third, albeit six tenths slower than Russell. However, the fourth red flag caused by Zhou would not be the last, since with just six minutes left, precisely Vettel suffered another Mercedes engine problem in his Aston Martin that made it impossible to resume a morning that ended there, before time and after of five interruptions.
In terms of laps, Mercedes also led that table, with 66 laps, eight more than Red Bull and 14 more than McLaren. Aston Martin came close to 50 (48), and Ferrari stayed at 44, with Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri giving 41 and 40 respectively. Williams gave 26 between its two drivers, Alpine 12 and Haas just 9.
The session will resume at 2pm, with an artificially wet track to test the wet tyres, without Alpine and we’ll see if it’s with Aston Martin or not. The rest will change their line-ups and Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Pérez, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Mick Schumacher will come out on the track.
Results of the 2022 F1 test in Barcelona 
– Friday morning times
– Friday morning times| Pilot | Equipment | laps | Time (tyre) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  George Russell |
Mercedes | 66 | 1’19″233  |
| 2 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | 58 | 1’19″756  |
| 3 |  Sebastian Vettel |
Aston Martin | 48 | 1’19″824 |
| 4 |
|
Ferrari | 44 | 1’19″831 |
| 6 |  Nicholas Latifi |
Williams | 5 | 1’20″699  |
| 6 | Lando Norris |
McLaren | 52 | 1’20″827 |
| 7 |
|
Alpine | 12 | 1’21″242 |
| 8 |
|
Alfa Romeo | 41 | 1’21″939 |
| 9 |  Pierre Gasly |
AlphaTauri | 40 | 1’22″469 |
| 10 |  Alex Albon |
williams | 21 | 1’22″652 |
| 11 |
|
Haas | 9 | 1’26″229 |
Charles Leclerc
Fernando Alonso
Guanyu Zhou
Nikita Mazepin
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
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Photo by: Giorgio Piola
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Foto de: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
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Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
