Barcelona Test Day Two: Raikkonen Rules, Rubens Rocks

The second day of the Barcelona test wrapped up earlier this afternoon and Kimi Raikkonen returned his Ferrari to the top of the timing sheet, ahead of a very fast Kazuki Nakajima and an impressive run from Rubens Barrichello in the new Brawn BGP 001. McLaren continued to worry with Heikki Kovalainen only managing ninth, the MP4-24 possibly struggling and 1.6s shy of Raikkonen’s dominating pace. Not all may be as it seems though.

The Finnish world champion didn’t have an error free day though and the F60 was garage-bound for much of the afternoon after a cooling system on the KERS device gave the team some troubles. Kimi only completed 55 laps, but his fastest time was 0.5s clear of Nakajima in the Williams FW31.

Rubens Barrichello took over from the jubilant Jenson Button for the second day of running in the new Brawn GP car. The Brazilian driver completed 111 laps and was just 0.061s shy of Kazuki’s pace. Another solid run for Jarno Trulli in the Toyota TF109 saw the Italian driver finish in fourth place.

Mark Webber continued in the Red Bull and managed to improve over this previous form from yesterday, the Australian managing to see a second off his lap time. Nick Heidfeld slipped down the tables after finishing on top on Monday. The German pilot was the busiest of the day though, completing 127 tours of the Catalan circuit.

Adrian Sutil improved to seventh ahead of Fernando Alonso who returned to drive the Renault R29. Heikki Kovalainen continued in the McLaren and once again found himself towards the bottom of the timing sheet. Many websites have speculated that the Woking-team could be either in trouble or sandbagging. However, it would appear that squad were simply trying out a few new parts as well as rehearsing pit stop procedures. This could very easily account for the apparent slow times, although from a drivers point of view, it would have been good for the confidence to pop in a quick time at some point during the day.

We are running through a big programme in Barcelona this week. Not only have we introduced a new series of aerodynamic components to MP4-24 but we have also been working on the car’s set-up and balance over longer runs as well as rehearsing our pitstop procedures.

It’s been a very productive few days with Heikki in the car and we are hoping for an equally satisfactory conclusion to the week when Lewis takes to the track tomorrow. Jonathan Neale.

The Scuderia Toro Rosso team hogged the bottom of the timing sheet, with Sebastien Bourdais taking the car out in the morning and only completing fourteen laps before an issue with the front suspension kept the STR4 in the garage. The team attempted to send Sebastien Buemi out after lunch, but the problem persisted and can only be resolved with parts being sent over from Faenza. All in all, the day was very unproductive for the new car.

Barcelona Test Day Two Results Table		Lap Time Fastest Time Set	Laps Set Number Laps Set
1.	Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari	1m20.314s	55 Laps
2.	Kazuki Nakajima Williams	1m20.907s	66 Laps
3.	Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP	1m20.966s	111 Laps
4.	Jarno Trulli Toyota	1m21.182s	121 Laps
5.	Mark Webber Red Bull Racing	1m21.347s	66 Laps
6.	Nick Heidfeld BMW	1m21.615s	127 Laps
7.	Adrian Sutil Force India	1m21.834s	82 Laps
8.	Fernando Alonso Renault	1m21.937s	111 Laps
9.	Heikki Kovalainen McLaren	1m21.991s	88 Laps
10.	Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso	1m23.039s	14 Laps
11.	Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso	No Time	6 Laps