10 things we learned from the second F1 test

After kicking off pre-season testing for the 2015 campaign at Jerez, Formula 1 teams were eager to get more representative running at Barcelona last week.

Performance runs from different teams stole the show in terms of headline laptimes but the opportunity for more relevant data collection meant race simulations were a significant feature of the second test.

That means while the pecking order is yet to be fully established, and remains unlikely to be entirely clear before the Australian Grand Prix, last week provided more clues to where each team is with just four days of testing remaining.

Here are the key lessons learned from an intriguing four days at Barcelona.

McLAREN-HONDA IS FALLING FURTHER BEHIND...
Ben Anderson (@benandersonauto)

The renewed McLaren-Honda partnership has suffered a troubled genesis so far and that continued during the second pre-season test.

The MP4-30 had to stop running early on Thursday, thanks to a faulty seal on the MGU-K component of the Energy Recovery System. Despite efforts to fix the problem with a redesigned part, Honda could not get on top of the issue and thus its entire test was compromised.

AUTOSPORT sources suggest this is a key problem that other manufacturers faced when first developing engines for this V6 hybrid turbo formula.

McLaren-Honda is only too aware that the longer it spends battling basic reliability problems (and thus having to run the car in a detuned state), the longer it will take to discover and fix the further problems that will inevitably come from running the car at full power.

With only four more days of testing remaining before the first race of the new season, time is rapidly running out for McLaren-Honda to be 'race ready' for Melbourne.

Fernando Alonso's unfortunate crash on the final morning - caused by the double world champion over-correcting a snap of oversteer after running wide on the exit of Turn 3 - brought the curtain down early on a week to forget for McLaren-Honda.

...BUT BUTTON'S OPTIMISM COULD BE JUSTIFIED
Ben Anderson

Jenson Button must feel like the unluckiest man in Formula 1 right now. The 2009 world champion has only amassed 86 laps over four days of testing the McLaren-Honda MP4-30.

That's an average of 23 laps per day - the lowest among any of the drivers who have got behind a wheel so far this pre-season.

Nevertheless, Button is incredibly optimistic about McLaren-Honda's potential - suggesting the MP4-30 may well become a race-winning car before the end of 2015.

That seems an outlandish statement from a driver who, by his own admission, "hasn't pushed this car yet".

But McLaren is so convinced by its new Peter Prodromou-inspired aerodynamic concept that it truly believes Button's optimism is justified.

Final-day crash notwithstanding, Alonso is believed to have no complaints about the chassis from his time in the car, while Button has reported 'incredible traction' from his limited running.

It's early days of course, but the MP4-30 is still running in launch specification, yet is already faster than its predecessor, and McLaren is sure it will develop into a genuine frontrunner once the engine is working properly.

McLaren has flattered to deceive in the past, though, so we will have to wait to see whether Button's words were spoken out of vain hope or realistic expectation.

MERCEDES IS IN FRONT
Scott Mitchell (@scottmitchell89)

Before the final hour of the four-day test, Mercedes hadn't shown its hand. Other teams trialled the soft and supersoft Pirellis to varying degrees of success, but Mercedes seemed content to do its own thing.

So it's difficult to work out which was more ominous: the long-run pace in which it was a second quicker than Red Bull, or the one-lap pace on medium tyres Nico Rosberg displayed to almost top the final day against the supersoft-shod Lotus of Romain Grosjean.

Either way, the metaphorical flexing of muscles was impossible to ignore. When Hamilton went toe-to-toe, or at least as much as you can in testing, with Ricciardo on longs runs on Friday, the result was clear: the Mercedes was, on average, 0.5 seconds per lap quicker on hard tyres than the Red Bull on mediums, and around 1s per lap quicker on the same compound.

Rosberg can play it down all he wants but, adjusting for the medium compound tyre's pace deficit to the supersofts, that Sunday lap was equivalent to Mercedes going 1.5s (or more) faster than Lotus.

Variables remain at play, but Rosberg was more than half a second quicker than the Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat on the soft tyre - which itself should have had a 1.2s advantage.

The bottom line is anyone hoping that Mercedes tripped up over the winter and lost its advantage will have had a chill run down their spine on Friday - and a bigger one on Sunday.

RIVALS STILL HAVE AN EYE ON FERRARI
Matt Beer (@mattofautosport)

After its headline-grabbing antics at Jerez, Ferrari was lower-key at Barcelona. More teething problems interrupted its running and it didn't feature at the top of any timesheets.

But that didn't stop it being the team that came up in conversation most often when asking other drivers and teams who else was catching their eye. From Daniel Ricciardo's surprise when told that Kimi Raikkonen's Thursday time was set on medium tyres, to Nico Rosberg's insistence that of all the teams making progress it was "especially Ferrari" that seemed to be in much better shape going into 2015, there was consensus that Maranello was regaining ground.

Engine performance was repeatedly singled out as the element that will make the difference for Ferrari this year, and the encouraging pace Sauber showed - between problems, of which there were quite a few for the Swiss team - underlined that.

It's not just on-track where Ferrari is a different prospect; the mood at the team is lifting too. Sebastian Vettel continued beaming, and was quick to dive in and help with the clear-up after an embarrassing out-lap spin into the gravel on Saturday. Maurizio Arrivabene raised plenty of laughs when he suggested Kimi Raikkonen was smiling so much he was concerned the usually taciturn Finn was "sick".

Arrivabene was quick to stress that the brighter atmosphere comes from a cultural change and a different way of handling Ferrari's recovery than the previous regime, dismissing a suggestion that Fernando Alonso's departure had removed a black cloud from the garage.

"I know Fernando very well, it is not fair to put the finger on Fernando," Arrivabene said. "It was the overall situation. It was quite under pressure and when people are under pressure, with everybody trying to cover themselves, this creates a kind of mess into the team."

And tidying up that mess is going rather well so far.

THERE MUST BE MORE TO COME FROM RENAULT
Ben Anderson

Red Bull boss Christian Horner's assertion that Renault is in a "completely different position" compared with 12 months ago is entirely justified.

Last pre-season, Renault-powered cars could barely run at all without breaking down.

At Barcelona last week, Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat clocked up 418 laps between them as Red Bull ran race full-race simulations for the first time. That's almost 100 laps more than the Milton Keynes squad managed during the full 12 days of pre-season testing in 2014...

Reliability is undoubtedly better, which is crucial given the need for teams to use one fewer engine per driver this season, but question marks remain over the performance of the Red Bull-Renault package.

So far, Mercedes looks to have potentially increased the advantage it held over the rest last year - certainly if the pace of its race simulations compared with Red Bull's are to be believed.

Ricciardo said there was "more to come" from the Renault engine, while Horner described it as "a work in progress".

Renault says it will introduce planned upgrades and run its new engine at full power for the first time at next week's final test. Perhaps then we will get a fairer indication of whether its target of halving the gap to Mercedes before the first race of the year is realistic.

SPARKS ARE POINTLESS BUT PRETTY
Matt Beer

The iconic sight of Ayrton Senna's McLaren and Nigel Mansell's Williams wheel-to-wheel down the Barcelona pit straight in the 1991 Spanish Grand Prix - sparks scattering in their wake as they jousted inches apart - is precisely the kind of evocative image that F1 wanted to recreate when it mandated titanium skidblocks for this year.

And heads did always turn in the media centre whenever cars pulled out to pass each other on the pit straight and kicked up mini pyrotechnics behind them as the rulemakers had hoped.

There's no mature way of saying this: sparks in F1 really do look cool.

But at a time when F1 has far greater problems than whether its cars leave a pretty trail or not, the return of sparks has been firmly filed in the 'fiddling while Rome burns' category by exasperated critics.

The key thing to remember is that sparks and financial sustainability for F1 needn't be mutually exclusive. They're products of entirely separate debates.

And it's unlikely that F1's finest brains needed many minutes to come up with the skidblock plan, so it's not as if devising it is the thing that's delayed the teams, FIA and FOM transforming the sport's financial balance or reinvigorating its public profile.

Sparks aren't going to save F1, nor will they destroy it. But they are quite cool.

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
Scott Mitchell

Max Verstappen shouldn't be a statement to single-seater rookies across the world that Formula 1 doesn't have an age limit. But he shouldn't pay the price for being what many believe is a prodigious talent.

So it would have been particularly disheartening for his detractors to see what a solid job he has done for Toro Rosso so far.

At Barcelona he was flawless, and he and rookie team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr topped back-to-back morning sessions over the weekend.

Their speed was never in question but the composure to deliver it in testing on rare performance runs, and to look so at ease on track during longer race simulations, was as much a statement as their table-topping efforts.

OK, Sainz spun into the gravel on Friday and crashed hard on Sunday. But drivers of far greater experience, of world champion calibre, made costly errors too.

Sebastian Vettel spun on his out-lap, Nico Rosberg did the same and Fernando Alonso crashed at the same corner as Sainz just a few hours earlier, with the exact same consequence to his team.

That, plus the job Pascal Wehrlein performed in the Mercedes and Force India, is proof that talent and performance need to be the ultimate evaluation criteria.

What we saw at Barcelona was proof that the rookies aren't out of their depth, and that you don't have to be a 17-year-old to make a stupid error in an F1 car.

FORCE INDIA'S GAINS ARE DEBATABLE
Scott Mitchell

One of the most common questions before - and during - the second pre-season test was why Force India bothered taking part when it was using its old car.

When asked by AUTOSPORT to explain the decision, Sergio Perez insisted on Friday that Force India was gaining useful information on the 2015 Pirelli tyres. But whatever characteristics the new specification rubber showed will not necessarily translate over to the new Force India that may run this week.

Perez claimed there were a few minor aerodynamic parts that would feature on the new car as well, but it was a party line that you felt was as much to convince the team as it was anyone else.

What casts a further question mark over the supposed gains the team got from running is that it didn't have the new Mercedes engine. Trackside, the Force India was significantly quieter than the Mercedes and the Williams, for example, and while noise is hardly the ultimate barometer of performance, it made it obvious to everyone that this was very much a 2014-spec car.

Testing is about honing performance. Plenty of teams - with McLaren-Honda the most obvious, but Mercedes, Williams, Ferrari and Red Bull all included - have found frustrating, mileage-limiting issues over eight days of testing, and had to balance reliability and performance tests alongside that.

Force India has to cram that into four days. And the feeling is that the old car's appearance will have done little to reduce that workload.

LOTUS IS ON THE WAY BACK
Matt Beer

Lotus was fastest on three of the four days, but all its table-topping efforts came from pure performance runs - short bursts with soft or supersoft tyres.

On Sunday it abandoned a race simulation interrupted by multiple red flags and switched to what it called on its social media - with characteristic cheekiness - a "go fastest simulation", and did just that.

But simulations aren't reality, and Rosberg getting within 0.2s of Grosjean's supersoft pace while using mediums burst everyone's bubble.

But none of that detracts from the progress Lotus has made over the winter. A miserable 2014 build-up full of delays and reliability problems set the scene for a woeful season.

Twelve months on and it's a different world in the team. Lessons learned from last year's design, plus a switch to the all-conquering Mercedes engine mean the E23 is a "huge step" on from the unloved E22 according to both drivers.

And Pastor Maldonado insisted that Lotus wasn't bolting on supersofts to showboat, but because with the car running so reliably compared with 2014, it had a relative abundance of time to try things and it would've been daft not to assess car behaviour on all tyre compounds present.

"We are at the top [of the times] at the moment, but it's the way that we're at the top that matters," said Maldonado. "Everything is flowing much better than last year, without any problems. Everything we do in the car, it is reacting to the changes."

As test driver Jolyon Palmer put it after his debut with Lotus on Friday, the crew isn't talking much about how great 2015 will be, more about how painfully bad 2014 was and how Lotus can't be back there again.

'Going fastest' may only be a simulated experience for now, but 'going slowest' is unlikely to be on the agenda this time.

WILLIAMS FANS NEEDN'T WORRY
Matt Beer

As Lewis Hamilton celebrated his world title last November, Felipe Massa was leaping into the arms of the Williams team celebrating coming very, very close to Abu Dhabi Grand Prix victory. So why is the team best placed to topple Mercedes in late 2014 spending so much of '15 pre-season testing at the bottom of the timesheets?

If it's there next week, when it plans to do qualifying simulations for the first time, then it will be time to worry. For now, everything about Williams's actions suggests it's having a deliberately slow-burning winter.

The car is an evolution of last year's successful chassis so the focus has been on addressing weaknesses, sharpening operations and ensuring reliability, rather than trying to revolutionise performance.

For some teams, the answer to the 'why didn't we win in 2014?' question is 'the engine was substantially down on power' or 'the team was wildly dysfunctional'. Those are problems that required major winter surgery. At Williams the only factor missing was often a sharper strategy or more self-confidence, and those flaws are best tackled methodically.

There may be a rude awakening for Williams and its fans when the 2015 field finally has a proper head-to-head. But for now, all the longer-run data, driver feedback and hints dropped by the team suggest that Williams is just focused on painstakingly addressing what took the edge off its 2014 performances and doesn't feel any need to flaunt itself publicly in February.