Day two of testing is now in the books. Here is a team-by-team review of the day’s action. Click or tap the team you want to navigate directly to:

Mercedes

Red Bull

Ferrari

Force India

Williams

McLaren

Toro Rosso

Haas

Renault

Sauber

Mercedes

The Silver Arrows ran an incredible 168 laps today divided between Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton completed 66 laps in the morning session, and Bottas ran 102 including a race-sim during the afternoon. Neither driver made public comment after the testing.

Mercedes plans to split driving duties among Hamilton and Bottas once again tomorrow.

Red Bull



Max Verstappen relieved Daniel Ricciardo of testing duties today, putting the RB13 through its paces for 89 laps. The team had a quiet but successful day. Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin from the Red Bull team report:

“After clearing the niggles we had yesterday, today went very much according to plan. We were a little tentative in the morning as it was pretty chilly and a few people were sliding around a bit. Because of that we focused on short runs and aero mapping. We then had a pretty long stop over lunch to make some changes to the car in preparation for what we wanted to achieve this afternoon.”

Verstappen described his day:

“We had a very positive day with not too many issues and we’ve done quite a lot of laps so we can be happy.”

“For us it’s not about showing how quick we can be at the moment. It’s the first test week and the second day, so it’s much more important to get some mileage in and to check if all the parts are okay. We’ll focus on lap time later on.”

Ricciardo returns to the cockpit tomorrow.

Ferrari

The Scuderia quietly continued their testing program today, totaling 108 laps at the hands of Kimi Raikkonen. The team reported that they only tested with the medium and soft tire compounds, but earned the fastest lap of the day. For the second consecutive day neither Ferrari driver made public comment.

Force India

Esteban Ocon took the wheel of the VJM10 today and had a solid day’s running. He ran 86 laps, 27 in the morning and 59 in the afternoon. There was only one minor issue with the car today, as Ocon described in the team’s report:

“The only issue was an oil leak just before lunch, but it didn’t cost us much track time and I’m satisfied with the number of laps we covered. I hope we will make similar progress tomorrow and the day after. This was my first experience of the new generation cars and I have to say they are proper beasts: the high-speed corners are very impressive and there are big gains in the low-speed corners so it’s a good step forward.”

Chief Race Engineer Tom McCullough added:

“Esteban’s feedback led us in a good direction with rebalancing the car and he also ran on a variety of tyre compounds including supersoft, soft and medium. I’m pleased we managed to exceed our target lap count and accrued so much data because the learning curve is so steep in these early days.”

Alfonso Celis takes over the VJM10 in the morning.

Williams

Lance Stroll drove the FW40 for the first time today with a disastrous outcome for the team. He was only able to run 12 laps all day as he spun off into the gravel during his second stint of the morning. The car was damaged and Williams had to send parts back to Grove to be fixed, ending the day’s running. Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley explains, from the Williams team report:

“Lance was on lap six of his second run when he had a spin. The grip was particularly low and so he spun and went through the gravel backwards. Even though the accident was entirely innocuous we’ve unfortunately had quite a bit of accident damage, which we’re now in the process of repairing. We’re having to send some composite parts back to the factory, which will be back with us at some point tomorrow.”

Stroll added the following comment:

“It is still early days and I have only done a handful of laps. I am just getting to grips with the FW40, and there is still a lot of time ahead of us. It was good to finally get behind the wheel to just get a feel for it.”

Felipe Massa takes the FW40 for more testing tomorrow.

McLaren

Stoffel Vandoorne endured the team’s second consecutive difficult testing day as he only managed 29 laps before needing a power unit replacement. He finished the morning session over five seconds off the pace set by Lewis Hamilton. After getting the new power unit in place he ran just 11 laps during the afternoon session. Speaking of McLaren’s ongoing issues Racing Director Eric Boullier gave the following observation, from the team’s report:

“There is already a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes by Honda to identify the issues and rectify them as soon as possible.”

Vandoorne added the following:

“It wasn’t the best day of running for us, but I’m pleased that despite the issue we still managed to get some laps on the board – I was very happy to get behind the wheel after four months without driving. It’s important with a new car and a new design that you can step into the cockpit for the first time and feel confident to push, and I immediately felt comfortable in the car, so that was definitely a positive for me.”

Fernando Alonso relieves Vandoorne in the MCL32 tomorrow.

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat took over testing duties today from Carlos Sainz, logging 68 laps in the STR12. Kvyat completed 44 laps during the morning with a best time of 1:25.012, sixth best in the session. The team lost some time during the afternoon session with an unspecified issue, only adding 24 more laps to their tally. Kvyat’s takeaway from his first day of testing, from Toro Rosso’s team report:

“It was a decent first day in the car for me and we were able to complete a good number of laps, which is always the main objective with a new car. We lost a bit of track time after lunch, but this always happens in testing – it’s normal to carry out precaution checks in order to double-check everything before going out. My first impressions of the STR12 are positive – it’s fast but we obviously need to keep working hard to improve this package. There’s still a lot to discover and that’s what we will keep on doing during the test.”

Head of Vehicle Performance Jody Egginton added:

“As we did yesterday, we started the day gathering aero data and conducting some background tests. After that, we moved on to baseline runs, combining what we learnt on Day 1 with some further tests, focusing on aero, tyre and mechanical characterisation. Overall, the results we have achieved so far are encouraging and we are working through our test programme adapting the run plans as required as we overcome the normal challenges associated with testing a new car.”

Toro Rosso will be splitting driver duties tomorrow, with Kvyat driving in the morning and Sainz taking over for the afternoon.

Haas

Kevin Magnussen drove the VF-17 again on Tuesday, completing more laps than any other driver. His lap tally of 118 on the day more than doubled his output from Monday which was 51 laps. During the morning session Magnussen ran 36 laps on a combination of hard, medium and soft compound tires. His best time of the session was a 1:23.200, set on his last lap on the soft tire. The afternoon session was much busier for Haas with the VF-17 running for 82 laps. The team ran hard, medium, soft, and supersoft tires on Magnussen’s car, successfully completing the team’s testing program. Here is what Team Principal Guenther Steiner had to say, from the Haas team report:

“Today we ran our full program. This morning we had a small hiccup, nothing big, and in the afternoon we ran our full program. What we missed in the morning we got in the afternoon. We learned a lot about the behavior of the car. We did setup changes. We know that we still need to work on the car to get the best out of it, but that’s why we do testing. Now the guys will analyze the whole night, and tomorrow with Romain (Grosjean), we’ll put in what we learned today and try to make the car go quicker.”

Magnussen walked away from day two of testing pleased:

“A good day. I got the most laps of anyone, so that’s sums up our day pretty well, with lots of running. That’s what it’s all about here at winter testing. We want to put as many miles on the car as possible, to find all of these little problems that can creep up during the season, to catch them as early as possible. I’m very happy with the feeling I have in the car and in working with the team. It’s been good to get back in a car again.”

Romain Grosjean will take over testing duties for Wednesday and Thursday.

Renault

Jolyon Palmer had a day of ups and downs in the R.S.17 today. He was only able to complete an installation lap before the lunch break while waiting on parts. During the afternoon session Palmer was able to complete 53 laps with a focus on setup work. Here is what Engine Technical Director Remi Taffin had to say, from Renault’s team report:

“We had a late start today but we were still able to complete set-up work on the chassis, gather data on the power unit side and give Jolyon a chance to evaluate the R.S.17. We completed just over 50 laps this afternoon and we were happy with how the car ran. Everything we’ve seen from the power unit perspective has been positive, and we’re looking forward to getting some bigger mileages under our belts in the coming days.”

Palmer spoke of the difference with the 2017 car:

“I’ve really enjoyed driving the car today. The downforce is a massive change ; it’s completely different from last year. It takes a little bit of getting used to but it’s actually a lot more enjoyable to drive.”

Renault will be splitting testing duties among their drivers tomorrow, with Palmer driving in the morning and Hulkenberg taking over for the afternoon session.

Sauber

Antonio Giovinazzi stood in for the injured Pascal Wehrlein today on what turned out to be a challenging day for Sauber. He was only able to complete five laps during the morning session which came after the power unit had to be changed for another. Giovinazzi was able to complete a total of 67 laps on the day after a successful afternoon session. He had positive things to say despite a trying day, from Sauber’s team report:

“It was a positive day for me, despite the issues we had in the morning. In the afternoon I was able to get up to speed running a good amount of laps. I want to thank the Sauber F1 Team again for this opportunity.”

Marcus Ericsson takes over testing duties in the morning, with Giovinazzi returning to the cockpit in the afternoon.