Raikkonen quickest on Day 4 in Barcelona

Kimi Raikkonen showed that with his steering sorted he’s as quick as anyone in F1 today. Actually, his time at pre-season testing in Barcelona overnight is the quickest of any driver on any of the eight days testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Further impressing was Raikkonen’s afternoon race simulation which showed the Lotus E20 can minimise the drop off in tyre performance across a long stint as well as any team out there.

Fernando Alonso’s best lap time was two tenths behind Raikkonen, while Bruno Senna made the most of his morning run to lock in the third fastest time of the day before handing over to Pastor Maldonado.

There’ll be some furrowed brows in the Red Bull camp with the update package of the RB8 proving less than spectacular. Webber had dramas yesterday and so did Vettel today, with gearbox problems the root cause. He won’t like being at the bottom of the timesheets.

The usual caveat applies that it can be folly to read too much into pre-season testing form, but you get the sense that Red Bull’s boffins will be earning their pay cheques between now and the Australian Grand Prix which is on in less than two weeks.

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[Source: Autosport | Pic: Lotus F1 Team/LAT Photographic]