Red Bull fastest again on second day of Barcelona shakedown

Only two teams took part in the second day of the pre-season shakedown in Barcelona, with Ferrari making its debut and Max Verstappen fastest for Red Bull.

With rain forecast for Tuesday afternoon a number of teams made the decision not to use up one of their days of track time, with teams allowed to use any three of the five days to run this week. Ferrari had not been on track on Monday, so opted to continue with its plan for its first outing on Tuesday, with Charles Leclerc driving in the morning.

Leclerc managed 64 laps before lunch but still had to spend a chunk of that time on intermediates and full wets as rain arrived.

Max Verstappen joined Leclerc on track as he made his first appearance of the week for Red Bull, and duly set the unofficial fastest time with a 1m19.578s before the rain arrived. Verstappen managed just 27 laps – including causing a brief red flag – before handing over to Isack Hadjar for the afternoon.

Hadjar had been fastest in the dry on Monday and described the car as “easier to play around with”, but he went off after lunch in the wet and caused another red flag, with his car needing recovering from the gravel trap on the outside of the final corner. Despite that, Hadjar still managed to complete 52 laps as Red Bull gained solid mileage with its new power unit.

Lewis Hamilton took over from Leclerc for the afternoon session and was similarly productive, with 57 laps to his name in the wet conditions. Given it was Ferrari’s first day on track of the week, a return of 121 laps – taking into account the weather – was a solid start to its track time.

McLaren and Aston Martin are the only two teams that are planning to run in Barcelona who have yet to appear this week, with Williams already confirming it will miss the test. McLaren stated it was analyzing conditions while continuing car preparations on Tuesday, and plans to run on all three of the remaining days, with the week so far having “provided an important opportunity for the full car to be assembled and checked”.

Aston Martin announced on Monday that its intention is to run on Thursday and Friday, with the car not expected to be ready for Wednesday’s track action.