BARCELONA TEST – Red Bull and Ferrari take to the track on the second day of shake down
The second day of the Barcelona Test was a all Red Bull and Ferrari affair with wet conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. While McLaren is the only team yet to start their programme.
This test is being ran behind closed doors, meaning reporting of this test has been heavily restricted as it’s a private test organised by the teams with no media access or TV coverage, so we are reliant on teams giving us the information. We are trying to cover this test as best we can, but this can lead to misinformation and we apologise for an error yesterday.
Max Verstappen went off at Turn Five, the four-time world champion clocked twenty-seven laps in the RB22 before handing over to new Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar, who also brought out a red flag when he crashed at Catalunya (Turn Eleven) in the final hour on his fifty-first lap.
Video footage online appears to show the RB22 into the wall with a broken rear wing. Verstappen also reportedly brought out the red flag when he went off track during the morning session, but his car escaped without any damage, and it did not appear to affect the team’s plan for the day.
BBC News, reported that witnesses say Hadjar was on his first lap on a set of intermediate tyres, having just switched from full wet tyres. The track was still damp and the weather was drizzly when he went off, spinning and hitting the barrier backwards.
A statement said, “That’s a wrap for day two of Shakedown, with 78 laps of running for Max and Isack in RB22. Isack’s afternoon was cut short after finding the barrier at Turn 14. He was out of the car immediately and is ok.”
Until then, Red Bull had continued their encouraging progress of the first day, and Max Verstappen had had his first run in the car in the morning session. there running slightly surprisingly after a strong Monday.
While it marked Red Bull’s second straight day of testing, it was the first appearance of the Ferrari SF-26 this week, it had made a brief public outing last Friday at the team’s Firoano circuit.
Lewis Hamilton was another driver to make a mistake when he ran wide into the gravel, but avoided causing any significant damage to his Ferrari. Ferrari were running for the first time, having stuck to a plan they announced last week not to participate on Monday, when seven of the teams the event took advantage of the largely dry conditions.
Verstappen and Leclerc ran early dry tyres before the wet weather moved in halfway through the morning session, giving them the opportunity to run on wet tyres. The Red Bull driver managed twenty-seven laps, while the Ferrari driver completed a race distance before they handed over to their teammates.
According to Sky Sports and Motorsport, Verstappen was fastest with a 19.578, a full second faster than Leclerc. But it’s important to stress no official classification is being released and teams are also yet to embark on any serious performance running. Between them Leclerc and Hamilton completed just under two race distances.
However, the focus of this week is on reliability and systems checks with their latest cars after what has been billed as the biggest technical rule change in the sport’s history.
Speaking to F1 TV after finishing his own stint, Leclerc said: “I’m very excited. I’m very excited to see what the others have in store and when we start pushing a little bit more, see where we are compared to the others. I think this year is a big opportunity for every team to do something different and to maybe gain bigger advantage than what we’ve seen in the last few years.”
At its livery launch last week McLaren made clear it was pushing to have a relatively mature car specification which it would take through to the opening races, dictating a later arrival at the shakedown. It said it would run no earlier than Tuesday, and would likely push to Wednesday if the weather proved inclement.