BARCELONA TEST DAY TWO – Charles Leclerc sets the pace two-tenths ahead of Pierre Gasly
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest on the second day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya – Barcelona. The Monacan set a 19.689 putting him two tenths ahead of the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly with the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo third fastest.
Ricciardo had topped the times for most of the day, after setting his fastest time in the morning session before Leclerc put in the first real challenge with less than ninety minutes to go. That saw Ricciardo set a 19.804, he managed over two race distances on his full day of running with him going a tenth faster than his morning time in the afternoon.
When comparing Norris’s and Leclerc’s times, the Monacan’s was more impressive as it looked as if he was on a race stint as well as the C3 tyre, a step softer than the McLaren on Wednesday. If Ricciardo had remained fastest, it would have been the second day McLaren had topped the time, but it was a tenth slower than Norris’s fastest time on Wednesday.
Ferrari has also been raising eyebrows with clips on F1’s Twitter showing the car bouncing back up on its suspension, which in turn allows the floor to start working again and force the car back down. Those it’s something occurring on all the cars, Ferrari appears to be the worst affected.
Team principal Mattia Binotto said it was not something the team had seen in its simulations. Saying “I think most of us at least underestimated the problem, in terms of [being] on track and bouncing more than expected. When you’re setting these cars up with the ground [effect] floor, the situation it’s different. It’s a learning process.”
Gasly meanwhile looked set to challenge that time, before the Frenchman made a mistake in the final sector following Sergio Perez. He led the way in terms of mileage on day two with a hundred and twenty-six laps. George Russell used his afternoon session to put the Mercedes a hundredth ahead of Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz.
Ferrari after sixteen hours of track time look reliable, between Sainz and Leclerc the team managed well over two race distances with a hundredth and fifty laps with Leclerc doing seventy-eight and Sainz seventy-one.
Russell completed one lap short of a race distance, however, teammate Lewis Hamilton could only do forty laps and finished bottom of the times. However, they competed more laps than Red Bull, Sergio Perez only managed seventy-eight laps after a gearbox problem cost him two hours of track time.
Asked where he thought Mercedes stacked up against pacesetters McLaren and Ferrari, Russell said: “Certainly not ahead, pretty sure of that. They seem to have things well under control. They are on top of everything and look very strong in low and high fuel and with tyre management. Who knows!”
“We all know that we are on different programmes but we definitely know from the average of all the different runs, we’re behind them at the moment. So let’s wait and see.
After the stoppage, the Mexican did manage a solid stint before in the latter part of the day moving up to seventh. But the stoppage on track appeared to not be a major concern. Meanwhile, there appears to be no reason for major concern in the Red Bull garage.
Sebastian Vettel was sixth fastest, the Aston Martin driver finishing a second off the pace after completing seventy-eight laps. The German chairman of the GPDA used his press briefing to say he would not race in Russia following the unfolding invasion of Eastern Ukraine.
At the time of going to publish, Haas announced that they would drop the branding of Russian sponsor Uralkali branding. But Nikita Mazepin would drive as planned on Friday. No further comment will be made at this time regarding team partner agreements.
The unfolding situation is set to be discussed at an emergency meeting of the F1 Commission this evening via Zoom, with a GPDA meeting likely to follow. Sergio Perez was seventh fastest seven-tenths behind Vettel, while Nikita Mazepin was eighth fastest two-hundredths faster than the Williams of Alex Albon.
Guanyu Zhou split the two Williams as he made his first outing for Alfa Romeo, the Chinese driver rounded out the top ten with a 21.8. Zhou had a better afternoon than his teammate Valtteri Bottas. The Finn only managed twenty-one laps, finishing the day fifteenth.
Nicholas Latifi was eleventh fastest, just under four-tenths behind teammate Albon. Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin twelfth fastest going three hundredths faster than the second Haas of Mick Schumacher, who completed a race distance. The German was over two tenths faster than Esteban Ocon.
Behind Bottas was Hamilton, who was slowest of all just under three second off the pace in sixteenth.