But Kubica won’t be a regular on the F1 circuit this year.
MONTMELO, Spain—February 26th—If it were not for his rally accident in Italy a few seasons ago, Robert Kubica could have been one of the best drivers in the sport. Determination enabled Kubica’s return to Formula 1 racing, and it paid off on Wednesday at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain. Kubica posted a 1:16:952 time–only a second slower than the time set by Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas last week.
Despite Kubica’s showing, the Pole is scheduled to be the test driver only twice for the Alfa Romeo/Orlen team in pre-season. He’ll race full time for BMW in the German Touring Car Series.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished second best for the day with a 1:17:347 time, despite being in the garage with suspension problems. Sergio Perez, who has been consistent during the four rounds of testing in his Racing Point Mercedes, took third. And Alpha Tauri–another team that’s showing promise for the season–had Dani Kvyat and Pierre Gasly finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Due to a water pipe issue, Gasly could only manage 25 laps in the morning.
Alex Albon finished sixth in the second Red Bull car. Defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton was seventh. Lance Stroll took eighth with Bottas in ninth and Sebastian Vettel tenth. Daniel Ricciardo was 11th, still productively ahead of Carlos Sainz of McLaren in the Spaniard’s customer-powered Renault. Thirteenth went to Charles Leclerc in the second Ferrari.
The two Williams entries were still improving, finishing 14th with Nicholas Latifi and 15th with George Russell. Unfortunately, the team had a stoppage at the end of the day as their Mercedes engine developed an oil system problem. It was the third issue for this kind of engine in pre-season testing.
Romain Grosjean, representing the American Haas F1 Team, completed the most laps (107) while finishing in 16th place. Lando Norris in the McLaren, Kimi Raikkonen in the second Alfa, and Esteban Ocon in the second Renault rounded out the 19 drivers–the most number of drivers who’ve participated in this season’s testing.
Verstappen and Kvyat ended the session with the Russian stopping on the track up the hill at turn nine, while the Dutchman spun out at turn ten.
The drivers will test again today, which is the second day of Week 2 testing. Friday’s third test day of the week will end pre-season testing for 2020.
