Why day one of the second test was unusually cagey

When Carlos Sainz Jr took his McLaren out of the Barcelona pitlane on Wednesday morning, he led Formula 1's 2020 pre-season into its second half. But the opening day of the second test in Spain stood out - purely because little really stood out.

In 2015, McLaren's start to life back with Honda was going from bad to worse as the second test of that year got underway. A year later at the same point, Ferrari had headline pace but an underlying chasm to Mercedes was becoming apparent.

At the start of 2017's second test, the McLaren-Honda crisis was deepening yet again, and in 2018, Ferrari and Red Bull piled on the miles while McLaren suffered stoppages - this time with Renault power. When 2019's second test rolled around, Mercedes rocked up with the reworked W10 that went on to dominate the season - even if things still looked bad for the team on the day.

This year, though, there was not a huge amount to be gleaned from the on-track action, as the top teams kept their hands unusually guarded. In fact, the spoils went to an unusual suspect: Williams exile Robert Kubica, now Alfa Romeo's reserve and simulator driver, taking the hot seat for the first half of the day before handing over to Kimi Raikkonen.

Kubica's 1m16.942s on the softest C5 tyres, set with 40 minutes to go in the morning session, put him top, where he remained despite late fast laps in the afternoon from Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and Racing Point's Sergio Perez.

But Wednesday's times are still some way off the best Mercedes managed last week. Kubica's benchmark was 1.21 seconds slower than the 1m15.732s Bottas produced on the C5s to top test one, with Lewis Hamilton's quickest effort for Mercedes on Wednesday also 1.83s adrift of team-mate's test one best.

Few teams completed any stints of considerable length - save for Esteban Ocon apparently completing an afternoon race run for Renault. It's understood that cars laden with fuel will lap the Barcelona trap in the 1m22s-24s bracket and, for the majority of the day, most squads stayed away from that range. As the Wednesday leaderboard showed, most didn't bother taking that much fuel out either.

Conspicuous by their absence on Wednesday were major tech upgrades - a la the W10 reinvention of last year

The top three teams did all complete comparable runs on the C2 and C3 rubber, with the former to be considered the 'prime' tyre the teams are completing their longer runs on during testing, and the latter - the median rubber Pirelli has brought to testing - the softer 'option' (when not considering non-performance runs that typically take place on lighter fuel on the C4s and C5s).

On the C2s, Mercedes appeared to lead the way on Wednesday, where - as ever - fuel and ballast loads are unknown. Over 12 laps, beginning around 11.15am, Hamilton managed an average of 1m19.112s, with impressive consistency.

Red Bull was next up on 1m19.872s over nine laps - which was Alex Albon's run when he returned to the track late in the morning after the team spent three hours fixing a suspension issue - with Ferrari averaging 1m20.293s during Charles Leclerc's best run that started 30 minutes into the afternoon.

Taking the first nine laps of Hamilton's run (which in both calculations has three outlier laps removed), his average comes down to a 1m18.972s.

On the C3s, Mercedes again seemed to be ahead - although it barely touched the yellow-walled rubber all day. On a two-lap average, Valtteri Bottas's short run 35 minutes into the second session resulted in a 1m18.274s.

In the morning, Sebastian Vettel did a similarly short effort that came in at an average of 1m18.432s. Red Bull didn't complete comparable C3 running - Verstappen did a late seven-lap stint at 1m20.048s, but this is considerably longer on the less durable rubber, and a single-lap effort timed at 1m17.347s.

One thing that did stand out compared to last week concerned the elements, with the wind picking up as the afternoon wore on. Mercedes technical director James Allison explained this impacted the cars "at various points" and felt "that was useful for us, learning how to get the best from the car as the wind picks up".

Also conspicuous by their absence on Wednesday were major tech upgrades - a la the W10 reinvention of last year. Ferrari ran a new spoon-shaped rear wing during the morning, while Williams and Alfa Romeo bolted on different wing designs at the front of their respective cars, and there were also new twin chassis bulkhead winglets on the Alfa. But there was nothing that looked like a big package of order-changing magnitude.

"Certainly, for the rest of the week, we will try as well to push for more on our performance just to see where we are" Mattia Binotto

Much had been made of Ferrari's low-key start to 2020 testing, particularly as the exact opposite happened last year - with Mercedes even going as far as suggesting its rival was running with its power unit turned down compared to those in use at its customer squads last week.

So, there was some expectation that Ferrari would hit back at the start of the second week, though this was ultimately suppressed with Sebastian Vettel and Leclerc adding 164 laps to the SF100's testing total, but only ending up 10th and 13th in Wednesday's order.

Ferrari did reveal that the "small detail on the engine" - per team principal Mattia Binotto - that caused Vettel's power unit failure on Friday has been identified and fixed, with the same unit now back running on the team's test car.

It was something Ferrari had been expecting to happen after spotting the same issue occurring during the engine's dyno development, but Binotto says the team has now "fixed it for the future".

The Ferrari team principal also addressed Mercedes' suggestion regarding its power unit performance when he said: "Mercedes seems to be very much aware of what we are doing, but it's not correct". But he did confirm that Ferrari was still holding back from unleashing the SF1000, tantalising the prospect of performance running finally coming for the final two days.

"We're really focused on ourselves - trying to understand the car, to correlate the car with all the data we got back home with simulations," he said.

"So the first week of testing last week was really focused on that one - understanding mapping. This week [is] a bit different so we are starting to work on set-up and trying to optimise it. Certainly, for the rest of the week, we will try as well to push for more on our performance just to see where we are."

While Ferrari and Red Bull didn't give away much regarding the gap they face to Mercedes - left over from 2019 and based on what occurred last week - they did create unwelcome headlines by causing two of the day's red flags.

Both were spins - with Vettel getting turned around by himself at the fast right of Turn 8 and spreading gravel over the track, and Verstappen bringing proceedings to an early end in the afternoon with a spin into the runoff at the Turn 10 hairpin.

Just two days of 2020 pre-season running remain, but at Mercedes at least, there might be a bit more waiting to do before the rapid running returns.

"Tomorrow we will continue to explore the basic behaviour of the car," concluded Allison, "before focusing more on performance on the final day of testing."