RED BULL WITH THE FASTEST EVER TIME AROUND CATALUNYA CIRCUIT

Daniel Ricciardo today returned to the cockpit of the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing RB14 for a marathon outing that resulted in the ‘Honey Badger’ claiming top spot on the timesheet, and the fastest ever time around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with a lap of 1:18.047, set on Pirelli’s new hypersoft tyres. Daniel also took the lap count honours, with a total of 164 laps on a highly productive day’s testing for the team.

It’s been another busy day for Mercedes AMG, with the W09 EQ Power+ completing 175 laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Both Lewis and Valtteri’s fastest times were in the 1:18s, set on the Ultrasoft compound tyres. Lewis took the car out in the morning, with Valtteri behind the wheel in the afternoon. Today’s programme focussed on aero tests, pit stop practice and qualifying and race simulations

Ferrari completed 115 laps, equivalent to a distance of 535 kilometres. Sebastian Vettel did 66 laps in the morning, the German’s best being a 1’19”541. Kimi Raikkonen was only able to drive in the afternoon, feeling unwell and staying in his hotel room until lunchtime. The Finn managed 49 laps, with a fastest time of 1’20”242, as he continued with the programme that had been affected by last week’s bad weather. Both men set their best times on the Soft tyres

Fernando Alonso made a positive start to Wednesday as he hit the top of the timesheets briefly, with his effort good enough for P6 at the end of the day. But that would be as good as it would get as an oil leak caused Alonso to come to a stop at the side of the track just over two hours into the day. A small oil leak forced an engine change. McLaren did manage to get him out with just minutes to go, allowing the team to complete system checks following the change and extend their tally to 57 for the day.

BARCELONA II TEST, DAY 2 RESULTS

P.	DRIVER	TEAM	TIME	GAP/TIRES
1	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:18.047	/ (HS, 165)
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG	1:18.400	+ 0.353 (US,90)
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG	1:18.560	+ 0.515 (US,85)
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.541	+ 1.494 (S,67)
5	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1:19.823	+ 1.776 (HS,119)
6	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:19.856	+ 1.809 (HS,57)
7	Carlos Sainz JR.	Renault	1:20.042	+ 1.995 (Me,88)
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:20.237	+ 2.190 (S,78)
9	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:20.242	+ 2.195 (S,49)
10	Lance Stroll	Williams	1:20.349	+ 2.302 (S,63)
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:20.758	+ 2.711 (SS,102)
12	Esteban Ocon	Force India	1:20.805	+ 2.785 (S,130)
13	Charles Leclerk	Sauber	1:20.919	+ 2.872 (SS,160)
14	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams	1:22.350	+ 4.303 (S,80)

HS - HyperSoft US - UltraSoft SS - SuperSoft
S - Soft Me - Medium
H - Hard SH - SuperHard
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