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It was an interrupted day that saw a change to the schedule just prior to lunch when a drain cover broke loose on the entry to Turn 11.
That saw the morning session cut short, with an hour added to the afternoon to compensate for lost time.
RESULTS: F1 Pre-season Testing, Day 2
Lewis Hamilton had run over the drain to break it free before Charles Leclerc collected it, damaging the floor of the Ferrari such that it will be sent back to Maranello for repair.
With spares at a premium this early in the season, it’s not an insignificant development.
Leclerc had been fastest in the morning session before handing the car over to Carlos Sainz an hour into the afternoon’s running.
The Spaniard duly went fastest in the evening, recording a 1:29.921s, the fastest time of the test so far.
And while it looks like a strong result from the Italian team, heading both of the day’s session, it remained overshadowed by the Red Bull.
Without a doubt, the Ferrari is among the strongest cars on track, but the RB20 appears to have the edge on it, even if that isn’t reflected on the timesheets.
The front axle of the Red Bull appears razor sharp, allowing the car to change direction seemingly at will.
By comparison, the Ferrari, and for that matter the Mercedes, were subtly less sharp. Both were very compliant but running much lower than the Red Bull.
That saw the red and silver machines sparking where the Red Bull wasn’t, the entry into the Turn 9/10 complex a prime example.
Behind those three teams appears to be both McLaren and Aston Martin.
McLaren has been talking a good game heading into testing.
It was another promising day for the Woking squad though a problem with the fuel tank while Lando Norris was on a race simulation run hampered its progress.
McLaren’s early optimism has been ever so slightly walked back by team boss Andrea Stella, who describes the MCL38 as a “good foundation”, though race wins remain the target according to Zak Brown.
How achievable that goal is remains to be seen but from trackside observations, the car didn’t look as sharp as Red Bull Racing, Ferrari, or Mercedes.
It does, however, look like a better package than the RB, which was a very handy car out of the gates on Wednesday.
And it remains so, but others around it have improved such that it’s no longer the stand out it first appeared.
That suggests a compliant car that was in a good window out of the box, whereas others had more to do to find the optimum set-up for their machines.
It’s a point that could mean one of two things; that the car has a wide operating window or that the team simply did its homework well and had the car well sorted for the start of the test.
But with a full day of running for all teams on Wednesday, there was little to separate the RB from Alpine, Haas, Williams, and even Sauber on Thursday, though the latter continues to look a handful.
At Williams, it was a better day but still not trouble-free.
A brake-by-wire issue curtailed Logan Sargeant’s running in the morning; the red flag for the broken drain was something of a relief as it afforded the team time to make repairs before the resumption, minimising lost time.
Sargeant managed 117 laps, though Williams remains the only team shy of 1000km of running – over 200km fewer than McLaren which is ninth on that list.
And yet, despite nearly 2500 laps, or over 13,000km of running across the 10 teams, the pecking order remains clouded.
Fuel loads, engine modes and more can all be manipulated to hide a team’s true form, meaning whatever initial pecking order we do land on must be taken with caution.
That extends to observations on track, too, where a lazy car can simply be a byproduct of a heavy fuel load.
There is no doubt that Red Bull Racing is the firm favourite and class of the field, ahead perhaps of Ferrari and then Mercedes. Were McLaren slots in is less clear, same with Aston Martin.
The midfield seems to have tightened, and RB has made gains, we just don’t know exactly how much now the field has caught it up.
To help us answer that, one final day of testing remains before the opening round of the 2024 season, which begins next Wednesday.
