F1 Bahrain pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 2

'Silverstone Guy' says "At what time today will Alonso shout: 'GP2 engine'"

Well I dunno, but he's out of the garage and currently seven laps into a stint on hard tyres, having predominantly run short stints (only two in double figures) on mediums today. As you can see on our leaderboard, 1m38.960s is the best time he's clocked, but very few people have looked like they're pushing yet (and whispers are already circulating the paddock that certain teams are sandbagging).

'write2abhijit' – sounds like when one of my cats walks over the keyboard – asks: "How much smaller will the fuel tank be this year? With the ICU power dramatically reduced, this high revving during the periods that would normally be off throttle to recharge battery has got to be using more fuel. If the tanks are materially smaller, would this place a limitation on the downshifting-to-recharge approach?"

This was one of the areas subject to a lot of push-and-pull as the regulations evolved. Tank capacity has been reduced to 100kg. Deciding how much fuel to 'spend' on generating electrical power via downshift-to-recharge will therefore be part of the overall energy management strategy.

'DanTheRussell' says: "I noticed what seemed to be a pink light flashing on some cars yesterday, what does that mean?"

Well, you are neither imagining this nor looking at the TV through John Inverdale's spectacles. The pink lights around the side of the car have been introduced for this season to improve visibility in bad weather conditions.

'goosefamily' asks if the teams have to use the same engine all week. Our understanding is that the PUs in testing don't count towards the annual allocation for race weekends – indeed, the number of PUs per year has long been a bone of contention given calendar expansion and the arrival of sprint races etc.

But there are restrictions on dyno testing, etc. What really stops teams having a truckful of spare PUs is the budget cap. 

Nice to see the Ferrari 640 down below. An utterly lovely-looking car, if indeed not the most reliable.

A lot of the 640's DNFs were attributed to gearbox failure, this being the first F1 car to feature a semi-automatic gearbox. Now, John Barnard's reasoning for coming up with the semi-auto wasn't just the principle of saving lap time by not requiring the driver to take their hand off the steering wheel.

Principally he didn't want to disturb the aerodynamics of the tightly-packaged car by having to put a bodywork 'blister' at the side to make room for the driver's hand to get around a conventional gearshifter. Neither did he want holes in the monocoque for all the shifting rods, etc, to go through.

The semi-automatic box seemed to be a whole load of trouble at first, but tracing the root of the failures took longer than expected. Eventually it was traced to an unexpected source: engine vibrations throwing the alternator belt off, causing the electronics to lose power.

To minimise frictional losses, Ferrari's engine development team had built the V12 with a four-bearing crankshaft. But at high revs it began to bend along its length, a phenomenon known as 'whip', which was what prompted the alternator belt to exit the scene.

Of course, Ferrari being Ferrari in the 1980s, the gearbox took the blame anyway.

BULL HIT

Ronald Vording reports that he's seen Isack Hadjar in his shorts, sitting outside the Red Bull hospitality box, so it seems unlikely we'll be seeing him in action this morning.

Unless Red Bull have fired him already, of course...*

* this was a joke

Speaking of, here's the latest total lap count for today so far:

1. Gasly - Alpine — 53 laps
2. Leclerc - Ferrari — 49 laps
3. Albon – Williams — 48 laps
4. Bearman - Haas — 47 laps
5. Norris - McLaren — 46 laps
6. Alonso – Aston Martin — 35 laps
7. Hulkenberg - Audi — 34 laps
8. Lawson – Racing Bulls — 33 laps
9. Perez - Cadillac — 25 laps
10. Antonelli - Mercedes — 3 laps
11. Hadjar – Red Bull – 0 laps

'Andrew Kimber', the number next to PIT stands for how many times that driver has been in and out of the pits today. The number next to the L shows how many laps that driver has done on the set of tyres that they are on right now.

To help make sense of this we are also regularly providing updates on the total number of laps each driver has done today.

It has been a low-key morning down at Aston Martin - Alonso has notched up 35 laps with a best time of 1m39.435s to put him eighth fastest - but given the team effectively missed over half of its allowed Barcelona shakedown running, it is focused on system checking and data collecting in Bahrain. A lot has been said about the Newey-designed, Honda-powered Aston, but any certain conclusions would be premature at this stage.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

A total of six cars are on the track at present which is the most all at once for ages. The action is heating up ahead of the final hour of the morning session, and Gasly is about to win the race to reach 50 laps completed.

On the ground in Bahrain Ronald Vording reports that Red Bull is understood to have found a leak in the engine which is the cause of its elongated stay in the garage.

Hopefully the leak isn't in the compression chamber...

Some of my colleagues have shown up for the start of their day (half-dayers, I know) and have remarked that the two most talked about teams have made the worst start to the day.

To recap in case you've missed the first two-and-a-bit hours of running, we're still yet to see Red Bull after it discovered a car issue during a rebuild overnight, while Mercedes has completed just three laps and is stuck in the garage with an engine problem.

Cadillac has since returned to action after a very early red flag when Perez stopped on track on his out-lap. Here's a full update.

Here's the total lap counts for the day so far: 

1. Gasly - Alpine — 38 laps
2. Leclerc - Ferrari — 34 laps
3. Norris - McLaren — 32 laps
4. Bearman - Haas) — 30 laps
5. Albon – Williams — 28 laps
6. Alonso – Aston Martin — 20 laps
7. Hulkenberg - Audi — 17 laps
8. Lawson – Racing Bulls — 11 laps
9. Perez – Cadillac — 8 laps
10. Antonelli - Mercedes — 3 laps
11. Hadjar – Red Bull – 0 laps

Speaking of engines, Sainz's comments are very interesting in the context of the latest politicking around the compression ratio saga. Yesterday Mercedes boss Wolff said they'd be "screwed" if changes to the rules were voted through and since then a lot of those with a vested interest in Mercedes (Vowles and Sainz at Williams plus Wolff himself) have been very complimentary about the Red Bull Ford engine which had looked to have been on the same side of the argument as Mercedes. This one is going to run and run until Melbourne.

Albon has joined Norris and Gasly out on the track to make it a trio of active runners, all Mercedes customer engine teams which is neat, while others either fix their cars or digest their early running. Or both.

As an extremely loose reference time, the fastest lap of last year's Bahrain test - with the old generation of cars - was a 1m29.348s set by Sainz for Williams. It will be curious to see how close the F1 teams get to that with these infant and, in theory, slower cars by the end of next week.

Total lap count for the day so far:

1. Gasly – Alpine – 20 laps
2. Bearman – Haas – 16 laps
3. Leclerc – Ferrari – 16 laps
4. Norris – McLaren – 12 laps
5. Albon – Williams – 11 laps
6. Hulkenberg – Audi – 9 laps
7. Lawson – Racing Bulls – 6 laps
8. Alonso – Aston Martin – 5 laps
9. Perez – Cadillac – 4 laps
10. Antonelli – Mercedes – 3 laps
11. Hadjar - Red Bull - 0 laps

So, that is two of the 11 teams currently unable to run. But it is testing and for most teams this is just the fifth day of proper running with these all-new cars and engines. You could say this is the halfway point of pre-season testing, given there's just under five days left of running permitted before heading to Melbourne. It doesn't matter if your glass is half-full or half-empty, we're at the halfway mark whichever way you slice it. (Unless you are Williams or Aston Martin).

Alonso has ventured out on to the track for the first time this morning in the Aston Martin, which means we are just missing Red Bull and it sounds like it is more than just a late finish to breakfast down at the Milton Keynes-based team. We're just chasing up some information, so we will keep you posted.