Barcelona Pre-Season Testing – Day 2: Vettel Still on Top, Palmer and Renault Come to a Halt
As yesterday, Sebastian Vettel lifted his Ferrari to the top of the timesheets, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez. On the other hand, Jolyon Palmer once again experienced an engine problem, which forced him to stop in the afternoon.
This second private test session was the opportunity to use Pirelli’s super-soft tires with purple bands for the first time. While we will have to wait to see what longevity they offer, they have proven their effectiveness.
Thus, Sebastian Vettel’s time of 1:22.810 was simply two seconds faster than last year’s pole position, indicating the performance improvement achieved. But the biggest performance gain of the day compared to last year is indeed credited to Manor, which beat its 2015 reference by more than five seconds! Pascal Wehrlein thus finished in 8th position.
The German finished just ahead of Fernando Alonso. While the performance is not yet up to expectations, Honda at least seems to have solved its reliability issues since the Spaniard managed to complete 119 laps during the day, something he hadn’t been able to do in all of last year’s winter testing combined. He could only express his satisfaction at the end of the day.
119 vueltas..! Gran día. Orgulloso del equipo. 💪💪
119 laps..! Big day. Proud of the team.… https://t.co/QywMzqZ9u9— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) 23 Février 2016
Reliability is also impressive at Mercedes: after Lewis Hamilton’s 155 laps yesterday, Nico Rosberg did even better with a total of 172 laps, including the fastest one that allowed him to secure the fourth performance of the day.
Similarly, the Haas VF-16 seems to be off to a good start as Esteban Gutierrez managed to complete 79 laps while placing in the middle of the pack. The American team proves day by day the seriousness of its package, which can only bode well for the battle in the field.
Two red flags marked the session due to technical issues. The first one was caused by Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso, but the Dutchman still managed to complete 121 laps during the day.
The second was caused by Jolyon Palmer, who let out a suspicious smoke which led to his stopping on track and particularly prevented him from going beyond 42 laps. Nevertheless, Rémi Taffin was reassuring: « After improvements overnight by both factories to resolve yesterday’s software issues, we executed a good program this morning, where we were able to collect data on the chassis and the power unit. This afternoon, we encountered an initial failure on a component, which ended our program. We were able to easily find the solution as it’s an area where we knew we had a weakness and we will have a solution available. »
CLASSIFICATION: End of day 2 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/sw4c78v4xQ
— Formula 1 (@F1) 23 Février 2016
