Williams lead second pre-season test in Barcelona
Published on 07 March 2017 by Mike Motilall
The time Felipe Massa noted during the early session of the second pre-season test, has not been bettered during the afternoon. The Williams’ team took their revenge with no less than 168 laps after a poor week during which they lost two complete days due to the damages suffered by Lance Stroll’s crash.
Daniel Ricciardo remained second, just like in the morning session, followed by Sebastian Vettel who demoted Lewis Hamilton to third. Ferrari were also making tracks. Just like Williams, their total score at the end of the day was an impressive 168 laps.
The Red Bull, driven by Ricciardo, only managed to pull off 89 laps. Red Bull used a lot of time, during the afternoon, to change the set-up.
At the end, the ever smiling Ozzie was reasonably happy about how the day progressed. “I thought we did well on the softs this morning. We drove some good runs on them. But the runs on the ultra-soft- and the super-soft tyres were not ideal. I was not quicker on the super softs and on the ultra’s only fractional. But on the softs it went very well. It was a good day and we learned a great deal about the car once more”, he says. “There is more in the car, that’s for sure. But that will be the same for Ferrari and Mercedes also. Ferrari is making a very good impression, but so is Mercedes as well. And the same applies for Williams: they didn’t do much last week, but even still, the car looked very fast. Now it was the same again. Where we stand exactly? I am not sure. Close to Ferrari and Mercedes.”
The second part of the day gets slowly underway. It seems that the one hour that lunch takes, is not enough for the drivers. Esteban Ocon is the only driver on track for quite some time.
During the afternoon, most of the teams are steadily lapping the track. After some issues earlier on as well, the afternoon doesn’t go by without a hitch for Renault. After an engine change in the early session, Nico Hülkenberg halts at turn 13 just before the end of the session.
McLaren also have their share of problems. The team that has suffered so much already, needed to do an engine change as well. Despite that, Stoffel Vandoorne still managed to do some 80 laps. Marcus Ericsson takes control of the Sauber from Pascal Wehrlein after lunch, but is unable to better the time set by the German in the morning session.
On Wednesday morning Max Verstappen will be at the helm of the RB13 to continue the testing in the runup to the new season.
Pre-Season Test 2 - Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluyna - Tuesday 7 March 2017
RESULTS DAY 1 - Afternoon 1. Felipe Massa Williams 1:19.726 168 2. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:19.900 +0.174 89 3. Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:19.906 +0.180 168 4. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:20.456 +0.730 49 5. Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:20.924 +1.198 86 6. Esteban Ocon Force India 1:21.347 +1.621 142 7. Nico Hülkenberg Renault 1:21.589 +1.863 57 8. Kevin Magnussen Haas F1 1:21.676 +1.950 81 9. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:21.743 +2.017 83 10. Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:22.537 +2.811 80 11. Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 1:23.336 +3.610 47 12. Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:23.630 +3.904 53 13. Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:24.790 +5.064 15
