Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022

Leclerc quickest as Red Bull and Haas cause stoppages on day two

2022 F1 season

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Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of the second day of pre-season testing in Barcelona as Ferrari again recorded the most laps of any team.

The Ferrari drivers combined for a total of 150 laps between Carlos Sainz Jnr in the morning session and Leclerc in the afternoon. Leclerc’s best lap time of a 1’19.689 was enough to see him end the day’s running quickest, just over a tenth slower than Lando Norris’s best time from the opening day.

Pierre Gasly ended his first day of running in the AlphaTauri AT03 second on the timesheets after recording the most laps of any single driver over the two sessions with 147. Daniel Ricciardo enjoyed a similarly productive day to his McLaren team mate Norris, clocking up 126 laps of the Barcelona circuit and setting the third best time of the day, almost six tenths from Leclerc’s best.

New Mercedes driver George Russell set the fourth fastest time of the day in the afternoon session and recorded a race distance in the W13. Russell’s team mate Lewis Hamilton finished the morning session with 40 laps under his belt, but set the overall slowest best time of all 16 runners during the day.

Ricciardo had set the early pace in the morning session, when a stoppage for Sergio Perez in the Red Bull RB18 on the exit of turn 13 led to the first red flag intervention of the session. Red Bull were able to address the reported gearbox problem and send Perez back out, where he ended the day seventh-fastest with 78 laps of running.

Having taken over the Haas VF-22 in the afternoon, Nikita Mazepin’s running was curtailed temporarily when a fuel pump problem saw him stop on track, before he was brought back to the pits allowing the team to fix the fault and return him to the track, where he finished the day eighth in the timings.

Alfa Romeo rookie Guanyu Zhou took his first runs in the C42 in the afternoon, where he was able to log 71 laps – by far the most in a single session for the team so far – and finish the day in tenth on the timing screens. Esteban Ocon took over the Alpine A552 for the first time and was able to complete 125 laps over the course of the two sessions.

There is one final day of running tomorrow before the second and final pre-season test in two weeks’ time in Bahrain. The afternoon session will see the track artificially soaked to allow teams to test the new 2022 cars in wet conditions.

2022 pre-season testing day two times:

Pos.Car numberDriverTeamModelBest timeGapLaps
116Charles LeclercFerrariF1-751’19.68979
210Pierre GaslyAlphaTauriAT031’19.9180.229147
33Daniel RicciardoMcLarenMCL361’20.2880.599126
463George RussellMercedesW131’20.5370.84866
555Carlos Sainz JnrFerrariF1-751’20.5460.85771
65Sebastian VettelAston MartinAMR221’20.7841.09574
711Sergio PerezRed BullRB181’21.4301.74178
89Nikita MazepinHaasVF-221’21.5121.82342
923Alexander AlbonWilliamsFW441’21.5311.84247
1024Guanyu ZhouAlfa RomeoC421’21.8852.19671
116Nicholas LatifiWilliamsFW441’21.8942.20561
1218Lance StrollAston MartinAMR221’21.9202.23155
1347Mick SchumacherHaasVF-221’21.9492.26066
1431Esteban OconAlpineA5221’22.1642.475125
1577Valtteri BottasAlfa RomeoC421’22.2882.59921
1644Lewis HamiltonMercedesW131’22.5622.87340

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Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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6 comments on “Leclerc quickest as Red Bull and Haas cause stoppages on day two”

  1. Impressive reliability from Ferrari. They’ve already done more than 300 laps after just two days, without a single (major) issue.
    Haas and Alfa still have to sort out their issues (again a fuel pump problem at Haas). At least they had one problem-free session each today.
    I wonder why Alpine still won’t let their drivers use DRS. Do they still have an issue with it? Or are they gathering more data to investigate the porpoising?

    1. Merc are very confusing. Why is their lap count so low? Did they have issues?

  2. Glad to see they got Perez back out, and glad to see that Gasly put in a huge amount of laps so that they and RBR will still glean a lot of data for their PU even if SP’s transmission issue held them back somewhat today.

  3. Norris time yesterday was in C4 a softer tire. Leclerc was in C3.

  4. Eggnog… ?

  5. I know it’s testing still, but I’m quietly confident that with lap times being fairly similar across the board, this year we may see driver talent being the deciding factor in results far more than we have in years, across the whole grid. We could have a classic season ahead! 🤞

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