Charles Leclerc ended up fastest on Day 2 of Barcelona F1 Testing from Pierre Gasly with Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the Top 3.
Unlikely the first day at Barcelona, the second one saw two red flag stoppages courtesy of two different drivers. The first one saw Sergio Perez stopped on track in the morning session due to a gearbox issue in his Red Bull machinery.
The second one came in the afternoon session when Haas’ Nikita Mazepin stopped due to a fuel pump issue. Both managed to get out for more lappage with the issue fixed but in overall context, they did lost out on important mileage.
On the drivers having larger runs, it was again Ferrari and McLaren near the top with Leclerc setting the best time of 1m19.804s to end Day 2 on top on C3 compound with 79 laps done. The Monegasque drove in the afternoon session.
McLaren’s Ricciardo (1m20.355s, 126, C4) was pushed to third later after AlphaTauri’s Gasly improved to second (1m19.918s, 147, C4). A late lap from Mercedes’ George Russell (1m20.537s, 66, C3) also dropped Ferrari of Carlos Sainz (1m20.546s, 71, C3) to fifth.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel (1m20.784s, 74, C3) was sixth then with Red Bull’s Perez (1m21.430s, 78, C2) seventh ahead of Haas’ Mazepin (1m21.512s, 42, C3), who improved late in the day. Williams’ Alexander Albon (1m21.531s, 47, C3) was ninth as Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou (1m21.885s, 71, C3) rounded the Top 10.
After a difficult start to the day, Zhou turned around a bit for Alfa Romeo in the afternoon with 71 laps in all, whereby his teammate Valtteri Bottas (1m22.288s, C3) was 15th with only 21 laps done. The other Williams of Nicholas Latifi (1m21.894s, 61, C3) was 11th.
He led Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll (1m21.920s, 55, C2) with Haas’ Mick Schumacher (1m21.949s, 66, C3) behind him after the German had a much cleaner run than Day 1. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon (1m22.164s, 125, C3) was 14th from Bottas with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (1m22.562s, 40, C2) in 16th.
While the teams and drivers continued to soak in the mileage, the biggest talking point was ‘porpoising’ phenomenon seen at the straights where the cars were bouncing way more than expected, even though the surface did not have the bumps.
Here’s tweet showcasing car bouncing on straights: https://twitter.com/F1/status/1496888665431326726?s=20&t=2DHR_345xqhqi4OFuNpyiw
#F1 #HappyTesting That's it. Checkered flag and the end of day 2 of testing at Barcelona. 2 down, 1 to go. #MsportXtra pic.twitter.com/RgO53OvFht
— #MsportXtra (@MsportXtra) February 24, 2022
Here’s what the drivers said after Day 1
Here’s how Day 1 F1 2022 test panned out
Here’s F1 2022 Barcelona line-up