F1 - General discussion and 2017

We forgot to update Verstappen's tally early when we did a count update. He's up to 81 now, and has just pit for soft tyres.

Stroll's improved, first to a 1m21.187s then to a 1m21.096s. That launches him to sixth. Didn't see the tyres.

Hamilton's just cracking on. We expected him to return to the pits a couple of laps ago, he's posted a 1m23.8s and a 1m24.1s in that time.
 
Stroll is on super-softs, so still has plenty of time to find. Patience, young grasshopper.
 
Hamilton finally pits after a very long ultra-soft run – 20 laps from out to in! Impressively, his pace held up. It dropped by just over a second from beginning to end.

Alonso's back on track. With 40 minutes on the clock, he should hit his half-century before the close of play. Currently the McLaren's managed 42 laps of the Catalunya circuit.
 
Two personal bests for Stroll so far on his latest run in the Williams.

Stroll finds a bigger chunk of time and posts a 1m20.579s on super-softs. He goes fifth.

Both Williams cars in the top five then.

Are we looking at the surprise package of 2017?
 
Since returning to the track after a long garage layoff, the McLaren MCL32 has at least been a reasonably consistent presence on track with Fernando Alonso now in his third stint and edging towards 50 laps for the day.

Lap times still clearly aren't the team's priority, but when will they be in a position to focus on outright performance?
 
Perez and Sainz have rejoined the track after short spells in their respective garages.
 
Verstappen's caught traffic – specifically, Grosjean's Haas. Looks like he got quite closes through Turns 11 and 12 and through the final sector.

It's a fight between Verstappen and Perez for 'most industrious driver'. They are on 91 and 92 laps respectively. That's a hell of a recovery from Red Bull and its engine supplier Renault considering they lost a big chunk of time – three hours of track running – earlier.

Alonso, Stroll and Grosjean have returned to the pits, leaving just Verstappen, Perez and Ericsson circulating.

Verstappen starts the 50th lap of this stint. Just another 16 and he's done a Spanish Grand Prix.

Verstappen may have had to clear Ericsson's Sauber on the last lap, which was a 1m23.782s
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As Verstappen's burned off a lot of fuel, this stint on softs is considerably quicker than his first one – to the tune of at least 2s a lap.

Perez pits, so now it's just Verstappen and Ericsson on the track. Half an hour remaining.
 
RED FLAG.

Verstappen's stopped.

We've just caught him crawling off-line through Turns 11/12. He's out of picture on the CCTV.

A bit of totting up suggests this has happened on the 58th lap of Verstappen's race run. So, another eight laps required to complete a Spanish GP distance – obviously we don't know, but it's unlikely Red Bull have misjudged the amount of fuel required by that much.

Verstappen's made it to the run-off area on the outside of Turn 12, but no further. The recovery truck is already on the scene and a sheet's about to be placed over the RB13.
 
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The number 13 is unlucky for some. Red Bull will hope this isn't serious. It can't build a world title bid on bad luck. Or dreams on suspicious minds.
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The Red Bull's being lifted onto the back of the truck as we type. By a crane, not by very strong marshals. Felt that was important to emphasise.

You'd need to have had your Weetabix to lift a Formula 1 car onto a flatbed.
 
Well I am not sure if the running will resume with less than 10 m in to go, and my dinner is on the table so I will leave you with that.
I will update with the days summery later and video links in the morning.

Cheers
Chris
 
Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time of winter testing so far on Day Two of the final test at Barcelona as Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen crashed out and McLaren's running was once again severely curtailed.

Bottas time of 1:19.310, set on supersoft tyres, beat his own previous benchmark, a 1:19.705 registered on ultrasofts at last week's Test One.

But Williams, fast emerging as a potential surprise package for the new 2017 season, ran Mercedes close in the timesheets when Felipe Massa recorded a lap of 1:19.420 shortly afterwards on ultrasofts.

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We've also just seen Alonso's McLaren getting wheeled down the pitlane. Not sure what's happened there.

Alonso wasn't in the car as it got pushed down the pitlane so whatever happened there is a bit of a mystery. He's not going to hit 50 laps, it seems. And McLaren will have the lowest mileage count of the day.
 
Looks like another red flag.

And as Hamilton returns, it seems like Ericsson's Sauber is the cause.

That is much more likely to be a fuel run than Verstappen's, but we can't rule out a technical issue.

We're rolling this description out quite a bit on Live over testing, but a fuel run is where teams deliberately run the cars out of fuel to help with calculations for when racing starts.

No restart. Day two of the second test, day six overall, is finished. Bottas is quickest for Mercedes.

Flickering CCTV reveals Ericsson has parked it on the exit of Turn 8.
 
Final lap count for the day:

1 Bottas (70)
2 Massa (63)
3 Raikkonen (53)
4 Verstappen (102)
5 Stroll (59)
6 Hamilton (79)
7 Hulkenberg (61)
8 Perez (100)
9 Sainz (92)
10 Grosjean (96)
11 Wehrlein (59)
12 Alonso (46)
13 Ericsson (46)
14 Palmer (29)

1 Bottas Mercedes 1m19.310s
2 Massa Williams 1m19.420s
3 Raikkonen Ferrari 1m20.406s
4 Verstappen Red Bull 1m20.432s
5 Stroll Williams 1m20.579s
6 Hamilton Mercedes 1m20.702s
7 Hulkenberg Renault 1m21.213s
8 Perez Force India 1m21.297s
9 Sainz Toro Rosso 1m21.872s
10 Grosjean Haas 1m21.887s
11 Wehrlein Sauber 1m23.000s
12 Alonso McLaren 1m23.041s
13 Ericsson Sauber 1m23.384s
14 Palmer Renault 1m26.462s

A good day for: Mercedes, Williams, Force India, Toro Rosso and Haas.

A bad day for: Ferrari and McLaren-Honda.

A mixed day for: Red Bull, Renault and Sauber.

Odd day – rapid times in the morning, bizarre inactivity at the start of the afternoon (thanks for sticking with us through that), and a disrupted finish.

Still, that's another day of testing finished. Just two more days of running left...this critical week's reaching its climax.
 
I really hope this isn't a false dawn for Williams. I'm trying not to get too excited, but I would love to see Massa win a race or three.
 
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