Barcelona Test Day Two: Schumacher Goes Top, Again

Day two of the first post-season test at Barcelona got underway this morning, and by the time the sun set over the south of Spain, Michael Schumacher was once again the fastest man on track in the gizmo-free Ferrari. Lapping almost 0.4s faster than McLaren tester Pedro De La Rosa, Schumacher popped in a time of 1m21.486s, 0.5s quicker than his previous effort on Tuesday. Out in force in the sister F2007 was full-time driver Felipe Massa who took over duties from Luca Badoer. Massa ended his day in fourth, just behind Renault driver Heikki Kovalainen.

McLaren fielded Gary Paffett again, and the Briton managed the fifth quickest lap of the day, just 0.2s shy of Massa’s time. Williams ran both full-time drivers Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima, who between them racked up 141 laps. Rosberg went sixth while Nakajima rested on ninth by the end of play. Also sending both team drivers out were BMW, Nick Heidfeld setting the eighth fastest time and Robert Kubica the fourteenth.

Karun Chandhok completed his second day of testing for Red Bull while David Coulthard also ran his RBR3 around Circuit de Catalunya 74 times. Force India tested three cars this afternoon, contracted driver Adrian Sutil drove in the morning before handing over to hopefuls Vitantonio Liuzzi and Christian Klien after lunch. Liuzzi finished at the bottom of the tables while Klien went the fastest of the three.

Honda sat James Rossiter out today in favour of running GP2 racer Luca Filippi who is a part of Honda’s driver development programme. For Thursday’s running, Mike Conway will take to the second car. Jenson Button ran in the sister modified-RA107 and managed to go twelfth. Filippi impressed with a 1m23.596s which put him in sixteenth.

Both Scuderia Toro Rosso’s were present with Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais, Vettel getting the better of his older team mate going 0.6s faster. Toyota sent Jarno Trulli and Franck Montagny out again and the pair completed 99 laps to finish thirteenth and eighteenth respectively.