Skip to main content

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe
Live text
Formula 1

Barcelona F1 test two day one

Live Text

Sort by
An empty threat from the Sauber driver, who returns to the pits.
Better lap from Vettel, 1m21.7s, but Bottas posts a 1m23.0s. Further down the order, Ericsson's is threatening a personal best.
Vettel back into the 1m22s now, but only just. Bottas is 0.4s slower than the Ferrari, so his pace is beginning to fall away as well.
Vettel makes a big step forward in pace, posting a 1m21.1s.

Ericsson's back out in the Sauber.
Another 1m23s from Vettel, another 1m21s from Bottas. Hulkenberg, like Vettel on mediums, was also in the 1m23s until he just posted a 1m22s.
Ericsson has brought a short run on medium tyres to an end.
Vettel's pace wasn't so strong on that last lap, he fell into the 1m23s. Bottas is in the 1m21s on the soft tyre.
Gary Anderson
McLaren are pushing the limits on cooling. From the picture below we can see they have added an extra three slots to the one that they were forced to cut into the bodywork last week. There are two brown-ish marks are on both sides of the bodywork so there is something very close to that part of the engine cover - probably the exhausts or turbo and that is of major concern. The exhaust temperatures on these cars runs at around 400-800 degrees centigrade and are wrapped in heat proof insulation. If the temperature cannot be controlled anything near them is vulnerable. To finish first, first you have to finish - so these random reliability problems that McLaren seems to have carried over from the Honda days are of major concern, and now they have no-one but themselves to point the finger at.

McLaren are pushing the limits on cooling. From the picture below we can see they have added an extra three slots to the one that they were forced to cut into the bodywork last week. There are two brown-ish marks are on both sides of the bodywork so there is something very close to that part of the engine cover - probably the exhausts or turbo and that is of major concern. The exhaust temperatures on these cars runs at around 400-800 degrees centigrade and are wrapped in heat proof insulation. If the temperature cannot be controlled anything near them is vulnerable. To finish first, first you have to finish - so these random reliability problems that McLaren seems to have carried over from the Honda days are of major concern, and now they have no-one but themselves to point the finger at.

Vettel's out on mediums and lapping in the low-1m21s, while Bottas is out on softs.
Hulkenberg's back on track, as is Bottas in the Mercedes.
Stuart Codling
Toro Rosso personnel gathered at garage door to watch Gasly’s drive-by; I wouldn’t describe them as looking smug, more ‘quietly pleased’.
Confirmation from Stuart Codling in the pits that the smoke was Vettel's lively exit from the Ferrari box.
Well, Vettel's just come round on the medium tyre, so if it was a smoky Ferrari it's not problematic.
Quite a bit of smoke in the pitlane but we didn't see the source. Vettel had just left the Ferrari garage though...
Boo you, Max. He pits with 63 laps completed – one shy of Bottas's tally.
Verstappen chalks up another lap, with a personal best final sector making it just two tenths slower than his best. He just needs to keep going a little longer and Red Bull will surpass Mercedes for laps completed so far.
Gasly brings the Toro Rosso, with that always-a-little-odd-sounding Honda engine, into the pitlane. He does a series of burnouts on his way through, and emerges the other side.
Magnussen back in the pits but Ericsson fancies some more of the action and is back out on a flying lap for Sauber.
After a slow lap, Gasly pushes again and laps three tenths off his best so far.
Renault becomes the latest team to be hassled by our prying cameraphone in the pits

Renault becomes the latest team to be hassled by our prying cameraphone in the pits

Fastest middle sector of anyone from Verstappen. Then a personal best sector three to lap just 0.053s than Bottas!

That's a 1m20.649s, which means the top three is covered by half a tenth. It's also come a bit out of nowhere!
Gasly puts in a personal best first sector. This is really encouraging for Toro Rosso-Honda, because Gasly's been on a reasonable run. So it's not exactly low fuel.

Vettel pits right at the end of his 50th lap.
That's the second-worst tally so far – but still five times more productive than its customer McLaren has been this morning...
Hulkenberg, meanwhile, has pit after nudging Renault's total up to a more credible 20 laps.
Gasly and Verstappen are running reasonably close together on track but last time round the soft-shod Toro Rosso was a tenth faster than the Red Bull, which has mediums fitted.
Bottas in again and will stop this time, while Vettel also pits in the Ferrari. Vettel rolls through so he may well come back in again in a lap's time – if he does he's going to pause his running one lap short of a half-century.
A trio of personal best sector times lift Hulkenberg above Perez and into seventh on a 1m21.787s.
Vettel pops in his best middle sector so far but his lap ends up three tenths slower.
Karun Chandhok
I'd be interested to see how the midfield teams go this week relative to the top ones. When the track temperature was so low last week, the teams with more downforce would have been able to energise the tyres more.

This week, with more representative conditions, we should see teams like Toro Rosso and Haas closer to the pace of the leaders.

Also, last week it seemed to take a few more laps to get their tyres to warm up when compared to Mercedes, so I'm keen to see if the warmer temps help them relative to the Mercedes.
Another Hulk improvement down in eighth, to a 1m22.346s.
Bottas in the pits after his latest soft-tyre run takes him to 63 for the morning, and he's wheelspinning his way through again.
Verstappen, who ticked past 50 laps last time round, moves into third on a 1m20.905s.
Sirotkin pits as Hulkenberg flashes past 0.004s slower than the previous lap.
Hulkenberg into eighth, ahead of Ericsson, on a 1m22.485s. His run is coming to an end.
A personal best middle sector again from Sirotkin but no improvement overall.
Air temperature at 13.5C, track temperature a sweltering 31.1C. No wonder the teams are keen on racking up the laps.
We have quite a busy track at the moment. Everyone except Perez, Ericsson and Vandoorne.
Vettel a tenth slower next time by. Two decent laps in a row – his soft tyres won't know what's hit them.
Well that was an anticlimax. After a personal best middle sector, Sirotkin doesn't improve in the final part of the lap and though he takes 0.003s off his best, that wasn't what we expected at all.

By: Geoff Creighton

Published: