Formula 1 Testing: Times from Day 2 at Barcelona

Wednesday saw Day 2 of the second preseason test at the Circuit de Catalunya, near Barcelona.

After identifying a problem with their chassis, Lotus elected to abandon the test late on Tuesday.  Plans to fly out a different car were scrapped to allow the team more time to rectify the issue.  Technical director James Allison said in a statement on the team website:

"

Before we were due to fly chassis E20-01 out to Barcelona in replacement of chassis E20-02—damaged this morning—we ran a series of simulations at the factory based on the data provided by our brief running on track today.  As a result, we were able to identify an area which requires some additional work.  It will be more productive for us to carry out these modifications to both chassis at Enstone rather than send E20-01 out to this week’s test.

"

Valtteri Bottas was given his first outing in the new Williams FW34, replacing Bruno Senna.  Nico Rosberg took over from Michael Schumacher at Mercedes and Caterham new boy Vitaly Petrov—who replaced Jarno Trulli last week—got his first taste of the CT01.

The fastest time of the day was set by Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India, using the Pirelli super-soft tyres.  Sergio Perez was close behind, also on super-softs.

#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:22.608	112
02	Sergio Perez	Sauber	1:22.648	85
03	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:22.891	104
04	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:23.180	87
05	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:23.639	48
06	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:23.806	120
07	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:24.555	82
08	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:25.738	117
09	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	1:26.605	69
*10	Charles Pic	Marussia	1:27.343	108

* Indicates a 2011 car with 2012 tyres

As usual, it's difficult to draw any conclusions, but Caterham and Williams must have at least a slight concern over their consistent lack of pace.

Fernando Alonso will be happy to have put in a better lap before he heads home, while McLaren and Red Bull performed long, almost full-length race simulations.  Lewis Hamilton didn't appear concerned with setting fast laps, but Sebastian Vettel—whether intentionally or not—ended up third overall.

Hamilton completed an impressive 234 laps over the two days, closely followed by Charles Pic in the 2011 Marussia on 229.

Mark Webber, Felipe Massa and Jenson Button will be among the runners when the test continues on Thursday.  The session will start at 9:00 am CET.