» Ricciardo leads the way in Barcelona

Daniel Ricciardo has taken Red Bull Racing to the top of the pre-season timesheets for the first time this year, posting a 1:24.574 on the second day of the second Formula 1 pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Cayalunya.

The Australian tallied the most laps of any driver so far – 143 in total, the equivalent of more than two race distances – with his quickest time coming on a Softy tyre run just before lunch. Moments later, Kimi Räikkönen clocked a time just 0.010 seconds slower in his Ferrari to go second-quickest.

Ricciardo spent the afternoon session conducting a full race simulation of 66 laps, running on Pirelli’s Medium and Soft compound tyres.

Felipe Massa popped up into third-fastest late in the afternoon when track temperatures were considerably cooler, clocking a 1:24.672 on Soft tyres in his Williams FW37.

After getting a late afternoon call-up on Day 1 of this test session, Sergio Pérez had his first full day of pre-season driving in the year-old Force India VJM07, posting a best lap time just three-hundredths of a second off Massa.

Concerns over a pinched nerve in Nico Rosberg’s neck ultimately proved true. After electing not to drive on Day 1 when teammate Lewis Hamilton was taken ill with a fever, the German only managed to run in the morning before handing over to the much-recovered Englishman.

The reigning World Champion finished fifth-quickest in the F1W06 Hybrid, six-tenths of a second faster than the German. The pair’s combined lap tally gave the Mercedes team the highest mileage of the day as the new car once again gave a display of outstanding reliability.

Fernando Alonso, McLaren Honda MP4-30 - Barcelona February testing

Alonso managed 59 laps in the McLaren MP4-30.

After losing much of the first day of the test performing a complete Honda power unit change thanks to a faulty seal in the MGU-K, McLaren concentrated on short runs in its MP4-30, running at reduced power. Fernando Alonso was at the controls this time, tallying 59 laps all up – the most running the Woking squad has managed over the entire pre-season to-date.

“We had a better day today. We could complete some runs and we run at 9am and finish at 5.45pm, which is good news finally,” a relieved Alonso told reporters at the end of the day.

“We could test some of the potential of the car, complete laps and check many systems we could not do before. Every lap we do we learn things, every lap we do we discover new things, so we are in a very early phase of the development of the car.

“Obviously we are running with some limits on the engine and the power but definitely the car felt better than Jerez. [But we are now] half way, six days done, six days to go so we need to make progress. We are happy today but we know we did [the] lowest number of all teams [in total laps].”

Reigning GP2 champion and newly-appointed Lotus reserve driver Jolyon Palmer had his first outing in the team’s E23 Hybrid, clocking up a solid 77 laps to add to his (so far) limited F1 mileage to-date.

Jolyon Palmer, Lotus F1 E23 Test and Reserve Driver - Barcelona February testing

GP2 champ Jolypon Palmer kept it on the black stuff in his first outing Lotus’ E23 Hybrid.

The last two spots on the timesheets were occupied by Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz Jr., who both caused red flag stoppages in the afternoon.

Ericsson clocked up 113 laps in the Sauber C34, which has so far not shown itself to be at the sharp end of the Barcelona timing screens after consistently doing so at the preceding Jerez test. The Swede suffered a stoppage on the pit straight in the final hour of the day.

Slowest of all was local boy Sainz Jr., who scuppered his ambitions of conducting a race simulation in the STR10 when he spun at the high-speed Campsa right-hander just 90 minutes into the afternoon session.

“Unfortunately, I made a mistake at Turn 9 and the car was stuck in the gravel so that cost us about half an hour of track time,” the Spaniard said afterwards.

“Once we got the car back, we started a race simulation that provided useful information, even if we didn’t complete it. These things happen in testing, which is better than in a race, so we can still take away some positive aspects from the day.”

Pre-season testing continues at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Saturday.

2015 Formula 1 Pre-Season Test – Barcelona Day 2 Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB11	1:24.574		143
2.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari SF15-T	1:24.584	+ 0.010	90
3.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW37	1:24.672	+ 0.098	88
4.	Sergio Pérez	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM07	1:24.702	+ 0.128	121
5.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W06 Hybrid	1:24.923	+ 0.349	89
6.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W06 Hybrid	1:25.556	+ 0.982	66
7.	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda MP4-30	1:25.961	+ 1.387	59
8.	Jolyon Palmer	Lotus F1 Team Mercedes E23 Hybrid	1:26.280	+ 1.706	77
9.	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C34	1:27.334	+ 2.760	113
10.	Carlos Sainz Jr	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR10	1:28.945	+ 4.371	100