Charles Leclerc made the perfect start to life at Ferrari as he echoed teammate Sebastian Vettel by leading on Day 2 of pre-season testing.
His morning best of 1m18.247s on the C3 tyres was within a tenth of the best time set by the German on Monday and was a strong indicator of the challenge he’ll pose as the pair completed the same program.
Though the Monegasque completed the most laps for a single driver with 157, main rivals Mercedes actually achieved the most distance with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton amassing 163 laps between them
As with Day 1 though performance meant very little to the defending world champions as Bottas was only sixth fastest, 1.3 seconds off the pace, and Hamilton a further four-tenths down in 10th.
Instead, it was another flurry of late flyers from Lando Norris, using the softer C4 tyres, that saw McLaren in P2 for a second straight day, with the British rookie only three-tenths slower than the Ferrari.
Kevin Magnussen’s best before lunch kept him third in the Haas, but a seat issue would mean he gave the car to development driver Pietro Fittipaldi for the final hour.
The Brazilian would rapidly improve his times with every lap but still finished 12th and last overall.
Despite a nightmare start, it proved a very good first day for Alexander Albon at Toro Rosso as the F2 graduate put behind him an off just four corners into his F1 career to complete 132 laps with the fourth best time.
Antonio Giovinazzi also had a solid start at Alfa Romeo in fifth and was the last of four drivers to break the century lap mark.
Bottas completed a series of long runs with some faster times towards the end in the Mercedes, amassing 89 of the team’s 163 laps.
Pierre Gasly was having a good day at Red Bull too with 92 laps but, on the 93rd, he would slide off at Turn 12 into the barrier ending his day early and causing the only red flag of the afternoon.
Nico Hulkenberg completed a race simulation for Renault, but a DRS failure for Daniel Ricciardo during the morning took some gloss off the French manufacturer’s day.
For the second straight day though, both the German and the Australian ended within the same tenth of a second, a 1m18.9s in this case, highlighting how competitive that battle will be.
Hamilton quietly built up his 74-lap total in what was a subdued morning for the world champion.
Finally, Lance Stroll brought up the regular drivers in P11 for Racing Point but his 80 laps will have been welcome after a quiet first day for the team.
The missing team once again was Williams, though with no further delays announced, maybe the team can finally hit the track on Wednesday.
Full results from Tuesday will follow.