Raikkonen tops second day, Mercedes hits trouble

Kimi Raikkonen led the way for Alfa Romeo on the second day of Formula 1 pre-season testing as Mercedes suffered its first setback of the winter at Barcelona.

40-year-old Raikkonen displaced morning pacesetter Sergio Perez with a late effort on Pirelli’s C1 Soft compound tyres during the final hour of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The Finn strapped on a fresh set of red-walled Soft tyres with around 45 minutes left on the clock to beat Perez’s long-standing benchmark on a 1m17.091s in what was his first day of testing action for the Swiss squad.

After nearly two days and over 15 hours of uninterrupted running, Raikkonen also was the first driver to cause a red flag when he stopped on track in his C39 heading up the hill to Turn 9 in the last 15 minutes.

After dominating the opening day of testing on Wednesday, Mercedes once again made the headlines on day two, albeit for different reasons.

The reigning world champions squad caused a stir in the paddock of the Spanish Grand Prix venue on Thursday morning when Lewis Hamilton debuted a new adjustable steering wheel innovation dubbed ‘DAS’, which it believes is legal and could hold a potential advantage.

But the afternoon was less positive for Mercedes as the first chink in its armour appeared when Valtteri Bottas was forced to return to the garage with an electrical issue which sidelined him for the final hour of running.

Despite Mercedes’ first reliability gremlin of the winter, the German manufacturer still racked up an impressive 183 between its drivers, with Hamilton completing 106 in the morning and Bottas turning in 77 prior to his ERS problem.

Strong reliability and high mileage once again proved to be a theme on the second day of running, with Renault the only team which failed to hit 100 laps on Thursday after making late starts to both sessions.

Nonetheless, Daniel Ricciardo still wound up third in the timesheets, ahead of Alexander Albon, who enjoyed a solid first outing in Red Bull’s RB16 which was only briefly disrupted by a minor seat-fit issue.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was a second off the pace as he rounded out the top five, with Sebastian Vettel sixth-fastest for Ferrari as he made his first appearance of the winter after being forced to skip the opening day due to illness.

Barring losing around 45-minutes of running due to an electrical issue, George Russell turned in another encouraging day for Williams and logged 116 laps on his way to seventh, with Charles Leclerc, Hamilton and McLaren’s Lando Norris completing the top 10 order.

Romain Grosjean managed an impressive total of 158 laps before contact with the barriers in the closing stages following a spin at Turn 5 left his Haas VF20 with rear-wing and floor damage.

The Frenchman was 11th in the timesheets, which were propped up by fellow countryman Esteban Ocon and Bottas for Renault and Mercedes respectively.

Final times on day two of the first F1 pre-season test.