Like in day one, McLaren finished the second day of the final week of pre-season testing on top as Carlos Sainz produced the fastest lap of the Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya so far with a 1:17.144 meanwhile Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel suffered a mechanical failure and shunted heavily into the wall.

 

 

Sainz carried out qualifying and race simulation runs for the Woking-based outfit, but his morning was disrupted by a water pressure loss, which brought out a red flag along with Vettel’s crash. The Spaniard racked up 130 laps on the mileage charts.

 

“It’s been a good day of work,” explained Sainz looking back on the day. “We managed to do a lot of laps again today and more or less a full race simulation.”

 

“There are still a few niggles and stoppages that we wish we didn’t have, but every time we go out on track we’re a bit more reliable and we keep moving in the right direction. Overall, I’m happy that we made the most of the time on track today,”

 

“The timesheets still aren’t important. We’re only focused on our run plans and tests, rather than wasting our energy on trying to calculate where we’re at compared to the others. Once we see what everyone else brings in Australia we’ll be in a better position to compare our performance,”

 

“For the moment, I’ll look back over these six days with my engineers, what I liked, what I didn’t like, and try to put together the best compromise for my last day in the car on Friday.” Sainz concluded.

 

 

SportPesa Racing Point’s Sergio Perez ended the day in second place and 0.698 adrift of Sainz’ benchmark. The Mexican focused on long-run data gathering and completed 88 laps while testing Pirelli’s softer compound range.

 

“It was a good day, even though we had a bit of a slow start,” said Perez reflecting on the day. “We had a couple of small issues here and there and the red flags didn’t help, but in the end we finished the day with plenty of information.”

 

“We were able to finally try some long runs after being pretty limited on mileage last week. We got to try the softer compounds of the Pirelli range and I was happy about the grip they offer. I had a good feeling with them and I hope we get to use them often this season, because they should work well on the majority of tracks,”

 

“I am looking forward to a good, trouble-free final day on the car on Friday, so that I can then prepare myself well before we head to Melbourne.” Perez concluded.

 

 

Things were running smoothly for Sebastian Vettel in morning, reaching a total of 40 laps and climbing, until a mechanical failure forced the German off the track, crashing heavily into the barriers at turn three.

 

Vettel reported to the medical centre for a standard check up and was declared ok. The incident brought out the red flag for most of the morning, which also impacted on Charles Leclerc’s time in the car for the afternoon and saw the Monegasque driver just complete an installation lap after an impressive repair job by the Maranello squad to get the SF90 back out on track.

 

“Clearly, we have not done as much running as we would have liked”, Vettel explained to the press. “But I’d still say I’m getting a positive feeling from the car,”

 

“Last week was definitely productive as we completed a lot of mileage and also yesterday, we were able to make up for the track time lost in the morning. As for the accident, I was going into Turn 3 and I had a feeling there was an issue with the front left corner of the car and from then on, there was nothing I could do to avoid the impact,”

 

“The good thing is I am totally fine and, by the end of the day, thanks to a great job from the mechanics, we even managed to get the car back on track.” Vettel concluded.

 

 

Kimi Raikkonen finished his day of running in fourth place for the Alfa Romeo Racing team. The Finn ran a total of 113 laps and set a 1:18.209. The Hinwil-based outfit worked on long race runs as well as preparing the C38 for the demands of Melbourne’s Albert Park street circuit.

 

I think when we got the car it’s been working well and it’s been pretty nicely balanced,” said Raikkonen. “Last week we didn’t really do a lot of set-up work but we tried a lot of things today just to see what happens when you change things.”

 

“So far OK. I don’t know where we are. It’s guessing from our side, we only know what we do. There’s always a lot of things and we always run out of time every year, but that’s the same as everybody. We’re just trying to put things the way we think is the best now and do our programme and then see where we can be in Australia,”

 

“We have to be ready because obviously every circuit is different, especially Australia it’s a bit different circuit, street circuit, so we need to kind of have an idea if the set-up is not where we want, what are we going to do. That’s what really today [we] try to figure out.” Raikkonen concluded.

 

 

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean rounded out the top five in his VF-19 racer, with the Frenchman running short stints on the C2 and C3 compounds. In the afternoon, Grosjean ran the softer C4 and C5 tyres and completed 120 laps of mileage and was satisfied with how the day panned out.

 

“It’s been a good day with a fair number of laps,” said Grosjean. “We had a bit of a slow start in the morning, but then we got into it, we did the program we wanted.”

 

“I drove the car in different conditions. It still feels really good, it reacts very well. There are a lot of things we’re improving day-after-day, The team’s doing a great job and I feel we’re headed in the right direction. I’m looking forward to getting more laps in this week.” Grosjean concluded.

 

 

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen followed in sixth place as the young Dutchman completed a huge 128 laps in his Honda-powered RB15. The Milton Keynes based-outfit worked on a mix of setup changes as well as race preparation.

 

“Not a perfect day, but still a good one,” said Verstappen at the days end. “There are always things you want to check, instead of driving until something breaks.”

 

“We did a routine check this afternoon and then got back out again at the end of the session. But even with the delay we had, we still managed to do over 120 laps, so I think it was still a very positive day. The more laps, the better and today we did a lot, so overall I’m happy.” Verstappen concluded.

 

 

Daniil Kvyat was happy with the days running his Honda-powered STR14 Toro Rosso, racking up 101 laps in mileage while working on aerodynamic tests and setup changes. The Russian posted the seventh quickest time of the day with a 1:18.682.

 

“I would say we had a decent day of running, we ran some useful test items and got some good laps on the board,” explained Kvyat reflecting on day two. “Of course, you always want to do a few more laps but we had a couple of small issues here and there, it wasn’t anything major, although the time adds up.”

 

“In the end, it was a productive day and that’s the most important thing, we got to test many useful items so now we’ll focus on the next day of testing. You can’t look too much into the timesheets as everyone is on a different programme of testing but I’m feeling quite comfortable with the car,”

 

“We got through almost everything we wanted to test today and we have a lot of useful data that I’ll go through together with my engineers. I have one more day left in the car and we will make the most out of it before heading to Melbourne.” Kvyat concluded.

 

 

Reigning World Champions Mercedes occupied the next two positions on the time-sheets and we start off with Valtteri Bottas who was eighth. The Finn ran the F1 W10 EQ Power+ in the morning working on car setup and completed 74 laps.

 

“It was a positive day, we did 74 laps this morning, focusing on set-up work and making some good progress,” said Bottas looking back on the day. “There’s a lot of data for us to go through tonight to further improve our set-up and make sure we come up with the optimal programme for tomorrow. We learned a lot today and we will make sure to learn a lot again tomorrow.”

 

 

Five-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton ran in the afternoon taking ninth on the classifications. The Briton focused on setup work along with race simulations clocking up 102 laps in the W10.

 

“We got a lot of laps today which is a good thing, but we’ve come across a few little hurdles, so we’re just working our way through them, trying to be as diligent as possible trying to understand the causes – which is exactly what testing is for,” explained Hamilton. “Everyone is working flat-out and I’m sure we will get there. You need days like this to be able to bring light to the things that we need to work on.”

 

 

Renault F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg completed the top ten in his R.S.19 racer, with the German hitting a total of 58 laps while focusing on aerodynamic tests and long race runs.

 

“We enjoyed another solid session today with a lot of laps put on the board for the second successive day,” said Hulkenberg. “We looked at more aero evaluations on longer based runs.”

 

“The team is working exceptionally hard to ensure we’re developing the car as fast as possible. I’m pleased with how things are progressing.” Hulkenberg concluded.

 

 

Robert Kubica ended his day eleventh on the time-sheets in his Mercedes-powered ROKiT Williams Racing FW42. The Pole had a trouble-free day clocking up 130 laps, the equal most to benchmark pace-setter Sainz. The Grove-outfit made great progress on data gathering, especially on the long runs.

 

We had a good day from a gathering data point of view,” said Kubica. “Time is running out and from a driver point of view we haven’t done much work on the car so there is still a lot of things to discover and not much time before the first race.”

 

“We are not in the position we would like to be from an engineering point of view, but I hope in the next few days we can start playing with the car and see how it reacts. We have to keep working and keep improving to put maximum effort in, and I hope we have a smooth start to the season now. Kubica concluded.

 

 

Renault’s new acquisition Daniel Ricciardo finished day two in twelfth on the time-sheets with the Australian completing 72 laps and focusing on long pace race simulations.

 

“It’s been another busy day of work and it’s really encouraging to put over 70 laps on the board,” said Ricciardo. “It was a little interrupted with the red flag delay but we ran to our programme and managed a decent race simulation.”

 

“We’re moving forward well as a team and to put over 130 laps for a second day running is very good. I’m back in the car tomorrow and we’ll be aiming to increase the lap count and continuing to grow more comfortable at the wheel.” Ricciardo concluded.

 

 

The aforementioned Leclerc was unable to complete any running and post a lap time on day two other than an installation lap in the afternoon following team-mate Vettel’s morning shunt but will be running a full day Thursday (today) before handing over to the German tomorrow.

 

Formula 1 2019 Pre-Season Test 2, Day 2 Classification

 

Formula 1 2019 Pre-Season Test Two, Day Three Driver Lineups

 

Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+: Lewis Hamilton (Morning) / Valtteri Bottas (Afternoon).

Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow SF90: Charles Leclerc.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – Honda RB15: Pierre Gasly.

Renault F1 Team R.S.19: Nico Hulkenberg (Morning) / Daniel Ricciardo (Afternoon).

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team VF-19: Kevin Magnussen (Morning) / Romain Grosjean (Afternoon).

McLaren-Renault F1 Team MCL34: Lando Norris.

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team: Lance Stroll.

Alfa Romeo Racing C38: Antonio Giovinazzi.

Scuderia Toro Rosso – Honda STR14: Alexander Albon.

ROKiT Williams Racing FW42: George Russell.