Barcelona Testing Day Two: Ricciardo fastest, Mercedes' pace ominous

[Jordan Adcock]

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was fastest on the second day of the ongoing first Barcelona test, while Mercedes’ pace on the slower compound tyres looked very convincing.

Ricciardo led both in the morning and afternoon sessions to be quickest overall having done 143 laps, a nice boost to the Milton Keynes squad who have been struggling to get laps in with their new RB11. The Australian was ultimately just a hundredth of a second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari, which has been consistently near the top of the timesheets and indeed been praised by Raikkonen as an immediate improvement over 2014’s lacklustre car, but the Finn was wary of reading into the notoriously unreliable testing orders, stating “we’ve still got a long way ahead of us.”

At Mercedes, Hamilton and Rosberg got a session each in the W06 Hybrid after a fever and neck inflammation respectively sidelined both from doing proper running yesterday. It was Lewis’ race-simulation run in the afternoon on medium Pirelli tyres that was most telling, finishing up less than four tenths off Ricciardo's Red Bull, whose fastest lap was on the soft tyre. Again, testing is never the best indicator of true pace, but between runs like this and coming off of last season’s dominance, but Mercedes do look very strong at this point. It wasn’t the only good news in the team’s garage, with Rosberg making this announcement on Twitter.

McLaren were also able to make progress today despite the Honda power-unit suffering from a faulty seal. A quick fix overnight, ahead of a new part arriving for tomorrow, helped Fernando Alonso complete almost a race distance of the Circuit de Catalunya while focusing on set-up, and ended up just under one-and-a-half seconds off Ricciardo’s best. McLaren's racing director Eric Boullier has had to admit that the team is about "50 percent behind" regarding their development plans, so today must seem something of a miracle given the ongoing reliability issues.

New Lotus reserve driver Jolyon Palmer had his first day in the Lotus E23 and was 8th fastest ahead of Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber in 9th, which with 113 laps looks like much more of a heavier-on-fuel run than what the team has done so far in testing. At the bottom was Carlos Sainz Jr., who despite a spin in his Toro Rosso still just managed to run his own century of laps.

First Barcelona Test Day Two Results

1. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1:24.574 143 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:24.584 90 laps
3. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:24.672 88 laps
4. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1:24.702 121 laps
5. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:24.923 89 laps
6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:25.556 66 laps
7. Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1:25.961 59 laps
8. Jolyon Palmer Lotus-Mercedes 1:26.280 77 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1:27.334 113 laps
10. Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso-Renault 1:28.945 100 laps

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

This "ominous" thing is out of control, Hamilton's fastest lap was on a 3 lap stint and yesterday Raikkonen did a 25.1 on mediums.

If you got that from autosport i'm afraid it's a big case of confirmation bias.

 

[Dan Allen]

How come the Merc's didn't do as many laps as the Jerez testing? I thought they were doing like 150 laps or something there, and now they're only doing 89 at best and 66 at worst?!

Nice to see Ricciardo doing well!

 

[Jordan Adcock]

@Leonardo Chaves It's not just Autosport who are impressed by Mercedes' pace. The medium tyre is roughly estimated to be a second slower than the soft, so that's what people are looking at when comparing the fastest times. Again, I don't think anyone's declaring the definitive running order right now, but it seems reasonable based on the dominance Mercedes showed last year, plus other teams' admission of the gap they need to close to Mercedes, to presume that they would at least be near the very top.

@Dan Allen Well, both the 89-lap and 66-lap runs were done today, it's just that Lewis and Nico shared a car since the teams are only allowed to run one car each in testing. So technically the same car did 155 laps today.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

I say it's a case of confirmation bias and you just cite the reasons for said bias lol.

Again, we all see what we want to see, and i saw Mr Raikkonen do a 25.1 on mediums on a much dirtier track.

 

[Jordan Adcock]

@Leonardo Chaves This isn't confirmation bias out of support for one team over another, it's just everyone simply being cautious. No-one wants to be the one who predicts with certainty big changes in the competitive order from last year, only to be found completely wrong by the first race and looking silly as a result. Because make no mistake, if Ferrari have turned things around to the point where they are equal to Mercedes or have even overtaken them in terms of overall pace, it will be a shock considering the advantage Mercedes had even at the end of 2014. Will this year's Ferrari be closer to the Mercedes than last year's? At the moment it looks like it, and the team seem more positive as well (here's a link to Nico Rosberg's own suspicions regarding Ferrari's progress), but at the same time it seems unlikely that the reigning world champion team would drop the ball in terms of car development from last year to this year to where all of their advantage is lost and they're clearly beaten by Ferrari and others like Red Bull. As always, testing is very difficult to judge, and the ultimate proof will be when they actually go racing, but right now I've not seen anything major that suggests Mercedes won't be at least near the front again.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

TBH, DILLIGAF, F1 is a waste of money & the fia have lost the plot, F1 rules & regs are killing the sport, formula E is more exiting than F1 in my opinion.

 

[Darth]

I really didnt expect Red Bull to make such a comeback in Barcelona. It is also
clear that Mercedes will have the upper hand this year as well.

 

[Milos]

McLaren/Alonso is getting better. Happy

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

@Jordan Adcock i never accused you of doing it because you are a Merc fan(not that there's anything wrong with that), the thing is people expect Mercedes to be ahead, with reason, so anything they do is seem as phenomenal and proof of how ahead they are, when others do it "it's just testing".

And that particular word "ominous" has really been overused to silly degrees by the press.

 

[Tri Nguyen]

How come the Merc's didn't do as many laps as the Jerez testing? I thought they were doing like 150 laps or something there, and now they're only doing 89 at best and 66 at worst?!

Nice to see Ricciardo doing well!

Dan cause the Mercedes drivers didn't do amny laps because Hamilton had a fever and Rosberg had a neck inflammation

 

[Darth]

Dan cause the Mercedes drivers didn't do amny laps because Hamilton had a fever and Rosberg had a neck inflammation

Exactly, they did all those laps with messed up drivers, in the same car.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Merc fan, but their are way too relaxed to be in tight spot.

 

[Tri Nguyen]

+Darth I am not a Merc fan either, cause they brought us probably the WORST F1 season in the entire history

 

[Tuomas Saarinen]

Damn I love to see countryman Raikkonen up there day in day out.

There's been multiple reports recently in Finnish media of him being a "totally different guy" compared to before and being absolutely stoked about his job right now. He's talking, he's laughing, he's being constructive and valuable to the team and getting along great with Seb as well. It's no secret that the last car didn't suit Kimis driving style at all, so it'll be really interesting to see how he does this year.

 

[Darren Bentley]

+Darth I am not a Merc fan either, cause they brought us probably the WORST F1 season in the entire history

may I ask why, we had 2 guys fighting for a championship in equal cars, 2013 was better according to you, where there was less racing, no championship fight, more tyre saving than 2014 but it was better in every way, I think just looking at F1Fanatics rate the race ratings, its safe to say 2014 wasn't the worst year
And if you want to use the logic of, it was clear Mercedes were going to win, just look at the 1988 which people consider a classic, because like in 2014 there was 1 dominant car and the two drivers were both going for the title until the end

 

[Dan Allen]

@Leonardo Chaves It's not just Autosport who are impressed by Mercedes' pace. The medium tyre is roughly estimated to be a second slower than the soft, so that's what people are looking at when comparing the fastest times. Again, I don't think anyone's declaring the definitive running order right now, but it seems reasonable based on the dominance Mercedes showed last year, plus other teams' admission of the gap they need to close to Mercedes, to presume that they would at least be near the very top.

@Dan Allen Well, both the 89-lap and 66-lap runs were done today, it's just that Lewis and Nico shared a car since the teams are only allowed to run one car each in testing. So technically the same car did 155 laps today.

Ah thanks for clearing that up.