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Formula 1

Barcelona F1 test day two

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Three cars on track briefly there, and some big tyre variety: Vandoorne on inters, Sirotkin on wets, Ocon on ultra-softs.
Sauber's sensor of the morning is a large rearward ice-scraper

Sauber's sensor of the morning is a large rearward ice-scraper

Sirotkin heads out. He's not had the best of the weather so far this week, running yesterday afternoon and in temperatures that still start with a 0. this morning.
Snow clouds?

Snow clouds?

Gary Anderson
The big negative about this test is the temperature isn't representative. Cooling these cars is tough, and they operate in a relatively small working window. You need to be in that window, let's say the water temperature should be in the region of 120C whether the ambient is 0C or 35C.

You can't simulate that range of conditions, you just have to run for the temperature as it is. And that can mean running a lot of blanking on the radiators to avoid over-cooling, which affects the airflow. The variation in temperature also affects the aerodynamic flow of the car both inside the bodywork and externally.
Strict Mercedes crew member insists to Bottas that he absolutely has to go out there even though it's cold (Sutton Images)

Strict Mercedes crew member insists to Bottas that he absolutely has to go out there even though it's cold (Sutton Images)

Information
Early morning lap count:
Bottas 4; Leclerc 3; Vandoorne 2; Everybody else: 1
Wide variety of different tyres being tried this morning - we've seen intermediates, softs and mediums used to try to grapple with conditions today. Force India, however, went ultra-soft, but not quite to the hyper-softs that would match its pink livery (Sutton Images)

Wide variety of different tyres being tried this morning - we've seen intermediates, softs and mediums used to try to grapple with conditions today. Force India, however, went ultra-soft, but not quite to the hyper-softs that would match its pink livery (Sutton Images)

Bottas pits at the end of his fourth lap, so still no times on the board.
Bottas stays out, still on inters, while Vandoorne is straight back to the pits.
Autosport
Since Liberty Media took over F1, it has dropped many, many hints about plans for a big revamp of how the championship is televised. Now it's revealing the first proper details of its ideas:

First details of Formula 1's 2018 TV shake-up revealed

The first details of Formula 1's television coverage overhaul for 2018 have been revealed

First details of Formula 1's 2018 TV shake-up revealed
Vandoorne fancies a piece of the action as well.
Bottas and Mercedes are delighted by the rising temperatures, and he heads back out.
Sun
Breaking weather news, we are above zero for air temperature now. It's 0.1.
Gary Anderson
Everyone will go into each day with a test programme set out. But as we saw with McLaren's lost wheel yesterday, that run plan can go out of the window.

Usually, you will have highlighted the things that you must get done, then you will have other things you will like to get done. You need to make sure you get through the key things and hopefully you get the rest done too.

So when you hear someone saying they got through their test programme with an hour or two to spare, you know they really have had a good day.
McLaren's entry in the outlanish aero sensor carnival (Sutton Images)

McLaren's entry in the outlanish aero sensor carnival (Sutton Images)

A close-up look at the side aero detail on the new Red Bull while Max Verstappen is in the pits (Sutton Images)

A close-up look at the side aero detail on the new Red Bull while Max Verstappen is in the pits (Sutton Images)

True to the team's word, Ocon takes the Force India out with a big aero device attached. We've now seen all 10 cars already this morning, although nobody has completed more than three laps.
There's not a lot of grip on track when it's this cold, as Leclerc has already demonstrated (Sutton Images)

There's not a lot of grip on track when it's this cold, as Leclerc has already demonstrated (Sutton Images)

Autosport
Need something to keep your ears occupied while your eyes are looking at this screen? Last night's Autosport Podcast delved into the stories behind the Monday results:

Autosport podcast: The stories behind the Formula 1 testing times

Gary Anderson reviews the opening day of the first Barcelona Formula 1 test of 2018 in the latest edition of The Autosport Podcast

Autosport podcast: The stories behind the Formula 1 testing times
Another 'first look' for this morning - Sebastian Vettel in the 2018 Ferrari (Sutton Images)

Another 'first look' for this morning - Sebastian Vettel in the 2018 Ferrari (Sutton Images)

Gary Anderson
The snow and rain overnight will have altered the track. It's a new surface, so nobody knows how it will react. It will have become less green yesterday, but the conditions overnight will have set that back.

The morning might be spent doing aerodynamic runs, getting data on things you looked through last night and what to learn about. By late morning, you'll start to see people chucking in decent lap times and experimenting with set-up so you know how the car responds when you get to Australia.

You have limited time on a grand prix weekend, and if a car's doing 'x' you want to know you can do 'y' and get an improvement. It's easy to fix problems, but not necessarily make the car go faster – what you want to do is fix it and make it faster.

You might even experiment to the extent where you put on too much front wing to make the car more pointy even if it makes it more difficult to drive. This is something you might want to take a risk on on a race weekend, so you want to know how it responds.
Force India has indicated that Ocon will be out soon, though, with aero work planned initially.
The Force India is the only car we haven't seen yet. The team's opening day was hindered by a sensor issue that caused high brake temperatures, so it has some catching up to do in the mileage stakes today.
Toro Rosso goes for a large sidepod snow radar (Sutton Images)

Toro Rosso goes for a large sidepod snow radar (Sutton Images)

Sensor watch: clearly a gigantic thermometer attached to Bottas's Mercedes this morning (Sutton Images)

Sensor watch: clearly a gigantic thermometer attached to Bottas's Mercedes this morning (Sutton Images)

Verstappen's Red Bull makes it back to pits, sounding clearer than when it left. The mechanics wheel it back into the garage. Nothing on track at the moment, as Vandoorne has also just returned from an installation lap.
Deliberately dark shadows in launch renders, camouflage liveries, 2017 cars in new colours... F1 teams aren't keen to give too much away when they first reveal their new designs, so Barcelona day one is the first proper chance to have a tech snoop.

That's what GIORGIO PIOLA AND MATT SOMERFIELD have been doing for motorsport.com's tech developments photo feature from day one:

Barcelona test, Day 1: Exposing F1 2018’s latest tech updates

Check out the best technical photos from the first day of testing in Barcelona, courtesy of Giorgio Piola and Sutton Images.

Barcelona test, Day 1: Exposing F1 2018’s latest tech updates
Verstappen heads out in a Red Bull that did not sound happy at all about heading out into an air temperature of -0.3. Hopefully that'll clear itself around this out lap.
Bottas stays out for a second lap (on intermediates) but he returns before setting a time. Huge aerodynamic device bolted onto the back of the Mercedes. In these cold conditions, there's little more the teams can do than some basic aero measuring, you'd suspect. Little surprise to see some cars heading out on inters (Vettel did it too) - over a 2-lap run with a track temperature of 2.2 you're not going to be getting a set of slicks working!
A first look at Charles Leclerc in the Alfa-branded Sauber (Sutton Images)

A first look at Charles Leclerc in the Alfa-branded Sauber (Sutton Images)

By: Geoff Creighton

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