Williams’ Felipe Massa topped the Barcelona timesheets, egding out Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo by 0.174 as the second and final Formula One test of pre-season got underway in Barcelona.
The Brazilian driver, who recently came back from a brief retirement to contest another season for Williams, set his best time of the day just over half an hour before the end of the morning session. The Brazilian’s time of 1:19.726, set on supersoft tyres, came under threat shortly afterwards when Ricciardo bolted on a set of ultrasofts but the lap wasn’t perfect and the Australian ended the morning in P2 with a time of 1:19.900. Those times held through the afternoon as the bulk of teams switched focus in the afternoon, with the short runs of the first hours giving way to longer runs in the second part of the day.
Williams were one of those teams working through long runs and after his supersoft-shod heroics of the morning Massa put in some marathon stints in the afternoon to end the day with a whopping total of 168 laps.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was similarly industrious and the German ended the day by not only matching Massa’s total but also by setting the fastest time of the afternoon, a lap of 1:19.906 set on soft tyres that was good enough for P3 on the timesheet.
While Vettel’s time, two steps up the Pirelli range from Ricciardo, looked ominously quick, the Australian felt that his time on ultrasofts had not been entirely satisfactory.
“We were also able to start doing some performance runs today. We tried the softer compounds and while my best time was on the ultrasoft it was actually not much quicker than the soft,” he said. “I think we learned something from that. We definitely feel we can still get more out of the car – I think everyone can – but it’s looking alright. It’s now my third day in the car and from day one to day two and now day three I’m more and more happy with it.”
Fourth place on the timesheet went to Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes driver was only able to complete 49 laps in the morning session due to a damaged floor. Team-mate Valtteri Bottas took over for the afternoon work and the Finn added a further 86 laps to bring the team’s tally to 135. Bottas ended the day in fifth place, 1.2s down on Massa’s pace.
Esteban Ocon gave Force India sixth place, just over four tenths off Bottas. The Frenchman’s time came on the supersoft Pirelli compound, however, while Bottas’s best was registered using the soft tyre.
Mercedes weren’t the only team to revolve drivers and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg set the day’s seventh fastest time in the afternoon after the team was forced into an engine change in the morning. Jolyon Palmer completed just 15 laps at the wheel of the Renault. Hulkenberg also brought out the day;s only red flag when his car ground to a halt in the dying moments of the session.
Daniil Kvyat was eighth fastest for Toro Rosso and the Russian ended the day seven tenths of a second head of McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne.
The Honda-powered team had another troubled start as another engine change was required in the morning but thereafter Vandoorne ran reliably, posting a total of 80 laps by the end of running.
Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein, returning from an off-season neck injury, was 11th quickest ahead of team-mate Marcus Ericsson, while Palmer was 13th.
2017 Formula One Testing, Barcelona Test 2, Day One
1 Felipe Massa Williams 1:19.726s – 168
2 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:19.900s 0.174s 89
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:19.906s 0.180s 168
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:20.456s 0.730s 49
5 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:20.924s 1.198s 86
6 Esteban Ocon Force India 1:21.347s 1.621s 142
7 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:21.589s 1.863s 58
8 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:21.676s 1.950s 81
9 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:21.743s 2.017s 8
10 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:22.537s 2.811s 80
11 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 1:23.336s 3.610s 47
12 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:23.630s 3.904s 53
13 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:24.790s 5.064s 15