F1 Testing: Mercedes, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin top Day 2

Joshua Harrison

Day two of the pre-season testing went to the tune of long-race and qualifying simulations, with times were all over the place as a result.

Mercedes looked far better than in yesterday’s sessions, but one has to ask whether the Silver Arrows are holding back, and that they haven’t yet showed their true performance.

Ferrari struggled a lot in the morning session with Sainz sliding and understeering through turns 7 to 10.

Red Bull were setting the pace once more with Sergio Perez, who was lapping quicker than Verstappen, but testing times aren’t always true come genuine qualifying later in the year.

McLaren looked to have more understeer, but it is unknown whether it was to save the rear tyres or that was Norris struggling to turn the hard tyres on.

Most impressive of all was Fernando Alonso. Four weeks after his bike accident, he was driving a blue Alpine Renault (nostalgia alert) and was being incredibly precise and consistent, on top of finding some decent pace.

Sebastian Vettel didn’t run much at all owing to more reliability issues, namely a gearbox issue, but refused to comment on whether it was the same problem that Bottas had.

The morning session came to an end with Sainz, Latifi and Hamilton all having troubles in the same area, due to the wind blowing in the opposite way as to yesterday. Hamiltom actually ended in the gravel trap at turn 13, bringing out the red flag.

In the afternoon, the long race runs continued, with Gasly and Leclerc starting them off, though it is worth noting that Leclerc was almost a second a lap slower than the AlphaTauri driver.

Haas were once again off the pace, backing up claims that the team are purely looking ahead to 2022.

Halfway through the session, Nicholas Latifi, in the Williams, and Pierre Gasly started a little race, with the former having the pace to hold off the AlphaTauri for a couple of laps, impressing again with the consistency of times and reliability.

Under the lights, times dropped, with Mercedes setting the pace at the end on the softest compound of tyre, followed closely by Gasly and Stroll. Leclerc ended up behind Giovinazzi using the same tyre, which is something Ferrari must find concerning.

Timesheet for day 2:

  1. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 1:30.289, 58 laps
  2. Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, +0.124, 87 laps
  3. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, +0.171, 71 laps
  4. Lando Norris, McLaren, +0.297, 52 laps
  5. Antonio Giovinazzi, Alfa Romeo, +0.471, 125 laps
  6. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, +0.597, 73 laps
  7. Nicholas Latifi, Williams, +1.383, 132 laps
  8. Sergio Perez, Red Bull, +1.393, 117 laps
  9. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, +1.926, 52 laps
  10. Fernando Alonso, Alpine, +2.050, 128 laps
  11. Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, +2.395, 57 laps
  12. Mick Schumacher, Haas, +2.594, 88 laps
  13. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari, +2.783, 56 laps
  14. Nikita Mazepin, Haas, +2.812, 76 laps
  15. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +3.110, 58 laps
  16. Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, +8.560, 10 laps

Joshua Harrison

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