Formula One’s preseason continues on Thursday with the second day of testing at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.
ESSENTIAL READING
TESTING SO FAR
LIVE BLOG
(All Central European Time)
14:20: Sebastian Vettel, who missed his scheduled day in the car yesterday with illness, has taken over from Charles Leclerc at Ferrari. He’s just gone out for his first lap in the 2020 car during this test. He will complete the day and then drive for all of Friday.
14:00: We are back underway in Barcelona.
1300: That’s lunch. Here’s the leaderboard so far.
1. Sergio Perez – Racing Point – 1:17.347 – 48 laps
2. Daniel Ricciardo – Renault – +0.402s – 41 laps
3. Alexander Albon – Red Bull – +0.808s – 59 laps
4. Pierre Gasly – Alpha Tauri – +0.818s – 76 laps
5. George Russell – Williams – +0.919s – 71 laps
6. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari – +0.988 – 49 laps
7. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes – +1.040 – 106 laps
8. Romain Grosjean – Haas – +1.149s – 87 laps
9. Kimi Raikkonen – Alfa Romeo – +1.161s – 65 laps
10. Lando Norris – McLaren – +1.190s – 48 laps
12:40: Its so impressive seeing Mercedes accumulate mileage in these tests. Hamilton has already passed a century of laps, the next nearest is Romain Grosjean on 78 laps for Haas.
Since it became the dominant F1 outfit Mercedes has always done this but I thought by now other teams would be in a similar position to go out and just hit the ground running from the outset.
11:40: The fact testing is being filmed and broadcast properly is great for fans but it has also enabled people to spot something rather interesting Mercedes is doing.
An on board with Hamilton earlier showed the reigning world champion pulling his steering wheel backwards slightly when on the straight, thus changing the camber of his front tyres ever so slightly. The steering wheel was then fixed back to its normal position before the braking point.
Mercedes technical chief James Allison speaks to the media later today, so it might be one that gets a fair amount of attention today.
Watch the tyres very carefully here, and how they ever so slightly move inwards towards the car when the steering wheel is pulled back.
Legal or not, whatever Mercedes have come up with here is insane. Moving the suspension to reduce toe-out on the straights 🤯 pic.twitter.com/XB1QAyPFk9
— Adam (@_Azzawon) February 20, 2020
F1 Associate Editor
The film director of these tests is doing a good job of keeping the media centre’s attention. Two laps just passed riding with Lewis and on both occasions the world champion pulled the steering wheel backwards, as you can see in the snippet of video above. It’s called “toe-in”, as it enables Hamilton to turn the steering arm, which controls the camber of the wheels.
11:00: Here are the times as we enter the final two hours of the morning session.
1. Sergio Perez – Racing Point – 1:17.347 – 23 laps
2. Daniel Ricciardo – Renault – +0.402s – 17 laps
3. Pierre Gasly – Alpha Tauri – +0.812s – 37 laps
4. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari – +0.988 – 35 laps
5. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes – +1.040 – 38 laps
6. Alexander Albon – Red Bull – +1.076s – 34 laps
7. George Russell – Williams – +1.174s – 28 laps
8. Kimi Raikkonen – Alfa Romeo – +1.256s – 28 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas – +2.233s – 39 laps
10. Lando Norris – McLaren – +2.234s – 24 laps
10:40: Here are two of the cars causing the most intrigue this week. The Renault, which rolled out with a slim-line nose — arguably the most radical change to any car on the 2020 grid.
And then there’s the controversial ‘pink Mercedes’, the 2020 Racing Point. Or is it last year’s Mercedes with a different lick of paint?
1015: Here are the times after 75 minutes.
First hour in the bag 💰@PierreGASLY tops the second day of #F1Testing 💪#F1 pic.twitter.com/eO9LWw9ySv
— Formula 1 (@F1) February 20, 2020
0930: Day one was a productive one for all the teams so you would expect the same today. All 10 teams seem pretty well prepped for this preseason given the stability in the regs between 2019 and 2020.
0900: Here’s a look at the teams’ planned running order for the day. The teams with two drivers listed usually use the hour-long lunch break to swap its drivers.
Driver line-ups for Day 2! #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/b36eUFU4bg
— Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (@Circuitcat_eng) February 20, 2020