F1 Testing 2019: Day 2 Report

Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of day two, while Mercedes completed the most laps and Pierre Gasly crashed out in the afternoon. Here’s the lowdown from the second day of Winter Testing!

Taking part in today’s test were Antonio Giovinazzi at Sauber, Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, Kevin Magnussen at Haas, Lando Norris at McLaren, Lance Stroll at Racing Point, Pierre Gasly at Red Bull and Alexander Albon at Toro Rosso. Mercedes and Renault split driving duties once again today, with Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo driving in the morning and Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg taking over in the afternoon. Pietro Fittipaldi also made an appearance for Haas in the final hour of the day.

Meanwhile, Williams gave an update on their expected schedule for tomorrow. They expect their FW42 to arrive at the track at around 5am tomorrow morning, and hope to participate in the afternoon session.

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Just like yesterday, there was a red flag moments into the session, as Alex Albon spun into the gravel. Franz Tost later confirmed that the spin was due to a steering issue after an overnight change, leaving the Toro Rosso debutant blameless.

It was the first of three sizeable incidents in today’s session. The second came as Daniel Ricciardo span off later in the morning at the first turn as a result of a DRS failure, with the top element of the rear wing tearing off when the Renault reached its top speed. It ended Ricciardo’s running early, with Nico Hulkenberg returning to the track in the afternoon.

Pierre Gasly also span out in the afternoon, and became the first driver to clatter the barriers so far in testing as he spun off at Turn 12. The crash ended Red Bull’s running for the day, completing just short of 100 laps.

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In terms of times, Ferrari were the pacesetters once again, with Charles Leclerc topping the timesheet with a 1:18.247. Leclerc looked to be on a similar programme as his team-mate Sebastian Vettel was yesterday. Leclerc’s pace today was 0.086 seconds slower than Vettel yesterday.

Like yesterday, McLaren set a quick lap in the closing stages, with Lando Norris setting the second fastest time of the day. He was the fastest of any driver in the first sector, though he was on C4 tyres, the second-softest available, and is likely to have been running on low fuel.

McLaren were one of six teams to complete over 100 laps today. Mercedes completed the most, with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas completing 163 laps collectively. You can find full lap counts for every team and driver here.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

DRIVER REACTION TO DAY 2:

Driving done. Feedback time! @HulkHulkenberg reviews Day 01 of Winter Testing.
Full report 👉 https://t.co/l9hmdEzbBO#RSspirit pic.twitter.com/srC3MnnKIY

— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) February 18, 2019

"Between our two teams, we completed 224 trouble free laps today, which is encouraging."

Tanabe-san 🗣️👇🏻#PoweredByHonda pic.twitter.com/XipVJNaGLt

— Honda Racing F1_Archive (@HondaRacingF1) February 19, 2019

PIeRRe GASLY

“The day was positive and I was really happy to be back behind the wheel after the winter break. The first feeling is good. It was important for me to get comfortable in the car and we managed to do more than 90 laps. This afternoon, I was pushing and out of Turn 10 I went on the power, upshifted to fifth and lost the rear of the car. It was quite annoying to lose the last hour of testing. Apart from that, we tested a lot of things and got a lot of good information, there is a good potential. Of course we still have a lot of work to do over the next six days of testing but for me, aside from the last bit, the first day was great.”

Here's what @HulkHulkenberg had to say on Day 02 of Winter Testing! 👇#RSspirit pic.twitter.com/TRYyi8yjNu

— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) February 19, 2019

WINTER TESTING DAY 2 RESULT:

Testing continues at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya tomorrow. Follow @LightsOutF1Blog on Twitter for live updates throughout the day!