McLaren topped the timesheet for the second straight day in Barcelona, as Carlos Sainz’s morning benchmark was unbeaten in the afternoon.
The Spaniard’s best time of 1m17.144s – set on the C4 Pirelli tyres – also remains the fastest time set this pre-season, a solid indication that the British team has made solid progress over the winter.
Much like Tuesday, there was a small negative as a loss of water pressure caused Sainz to stop at the end of the pits, but he would end the day with the joint-best lap tally for a single driver at 130.
As is normal, several drivers did make late moves up the standings in the final hour with Sergio Perez doing just that in the Racing Point in what was a productive afternoon for the Mexican with 60 laps to his name.
The main story of the morning was Sebastian Vettel’s hefty crash at Turn 3 due to an unspecified failure on the front-left of his Ferrari.
His best time of the day before would still be good enough to remain third but, more importantly, Charles Leclerc would complete an installation lap in the final minutes following the rebuild.
Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean joined Perez as late improvers as a run on the C4 compound moved the Alfa Romeo driver upto fourth with the Haas driver just behind on the C5 rubber.
Max Verstappen would enjoy another healthy day in the Red Bull with 128 laps on the board, that despite not appearing for over two hours in the afternoon though would run late on.
Daniil Kvyat was just behind in the Toro Rosso as he added another century of laps to the Honda power unit which has run impeccably so far in testing.
Mercedes also appear more in the game with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton both in the 1m18.9s bracket on the C3 tyre.
The two drivers also combined for a mammoth 175 laps, easily the highest total for a single team on Wednesday.
Nico Hulkenberg matched the Silver Arrows with his best time in the Renault as he focused more on performance after teammate Daniel Ricciardo had conducted long runs in the morning.
In between them on the timing screen was Robert Kubica as Williams also enjoyed another very productive day, matching Sainz’s total of 130 laps as they look to catch up from last week’s delays.
Full standings from Day 2 can be seen below:
