Testing day 2

Today’s format will be different than yesterday’s as yesterday was our first time seeing the new cars on track, and I thought each team deserved a dedicated section. For day 2, I have decided to reduce the day’s action into it’s highlights and lowlights.

Highlight: Ferrari

Ferrari finished P1 and P5 with a total of 150 laps. This is another great day for them, showing another two races and some more. Their flawless running these past two days puts them in the spotlight for the title fight this year.

Highlight: Haas

While their title sponsor may be under threat, their on track running went fairly well today. Mick Schumacher got in a decent 66 laps setting a best lap of 1m21.949s on C3s putting him P13; which isn’t the worst, but definitely could have been better. Mazepins luck went south in the afternoon. He had a damaged fuel pump, resulting in the second red flag of the running today. Mazepin was only able to run 42 laps before being towed off the track. He did, however, set a personal (and team) best lap time putting him P8, their best result during the testing. Their performance was impressive, but will their reliability and inexperienced drivers impede their progress?

Lowlight: Red Bull

After Perez’s gearbox failure in the morning session Red Bull lost a great deal of track time.. Perez drove in both the morning and afternoon sessions, but was only able to manage 78 laps in total. In comparison, that team which is potentially their title rival, was able to log 74 laps more (over a Grand Prix’s distance more!).

Highlight: Pierre Gasly

We called it! Gasly finished in the top five just as predicted (and just like most GPs last year). He The Frenchman finished P2 with the more laps than the entire field logged today. He was extremely impressive today in not only his speed but his total lap count. Gasly continues to strengthen his resume; his contract ends after 2022 and he will be looking for a more prestigious sean next season

Lowlight: Mercedes

The top two teams in last year’s constructors were not impressive today. Mercedes completed only 106 laps today. No issues were reported by the team, but Hamilton ran only 40 laps this morning, and set the slowest time today. Obviously, Mercedes’s less-than-stellar performance on day two does not doom their constructor’s championship hopes, nor mean that Hamilton has fallen off over the winter. However, fans hoping for a season without complete domination by Mercedes will be excited by their struggles today.

Spotlight:

Alfa Romeo was able to get a decent amount of for their rookie Guanyu Zhou. He managed to bang in an impressive 71 laps finishing P11. This is a substantial improvement of their sessions yesterday, in which they only finished t30 laps. Hopefully their last day of testing goes smoothly, so both of their drivers can get experience in the new car.