Barcelona Testing 1 – Day 2: Pérez Finishes in Style

The days follow one another but are not alike during these tests: quiet on Tuesday, Sergio Pérez made headlines on Wednesday by recording the first time of the week under the 1:22.000 mark, with a lap of 1:21.848 (on soft tires). It is worth mentioning that the best overall time achieved last year during winter testing in Barcelona – set by Kimi Räikkönen – has already been surpassed as it stood at 1:22.030. The Mexican also completed 97 laps today, totaling 174 laps over two days. He will leave an apparently reliable car to Jenson Button.

Behind him, Sebastian Vettel, at the wheel of the Red Bull, had a rather quiet day even though a few small issues prematurely ended it, causing the first of the two red flags of the day around 4:15 PM. Still covering a total of 84 laps, the triple world champion was three-tenths behind Pérez, also on soft tires, and will leave his seat to Mark Webber starting Thursday.

To complete the top trio, we find Kimi Räikkönen, who set his best lap on medium tires: the Finn, who experienced a telemetry problem yesterday preventing him from doing long runs, was this time victim of a gearbox issue that kept him in the pits until 3:20 PM. The following hour and forty minutes allowed him to complete 39 laps, bringing his daily total to 43, almost the same as yesterday (44), making him the least active driver over these first two days (which is already better than last year when Lotus had to abandon its four days of testing due to a defect on the E20 chassis). Despite everything, he managed to feature in the top 3 on both days, despite shaky reliability.

In fourth position, Lewis Hamilton set his time on hard tires but above all covered 121 laps, putting in a lot of work after a first day disrupted by a gearbox problem for Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso’s day was also slightly disrupted when his Ferrari experienced an exhaust problem, immobilizing it for three hours, including a break. The Spaniard set the fifth-fastest time even though, like many drivers, he focused on completing long stints.

Next were Valtteri Bottas in the Williams, Daniel Ricciardo driving the Toro Rosso, Paul di Resta whose Force India did not run during the last hour and a half due to a crack in one of the exhausts, Nico Hülkenberg struggling with the tires on his Sauber, Max Chilton whose Marussia’s stoppage caused the second red flag ending the testing day, and finally Charles Pic who made up for lost time yesterday by completing 102 laps.

If you want to know in detail what happened today, you can relive the live coverage of this day.

Barcelona Ranking 1 – Day 2: