Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest on the second day of Formula 1’s opening 2022 pre-season test at Barcelona as Red Bull and Haas caused red flags.
Sergio Perez’s RB18 broke down shortly before the lunch break with a suspected gearbox issue and his stricken Red Bull warranted the first red flag of the three-day Barcelona test so far.
He missed the opening couple of hours of the afternoon session before re-emerging to give him a final lapcount of 74.
Perez ended up almost 1.5 seconds slower than pacesetter Leclerc, who had claimed the top spot with 75 minutes of the session remaining.
He improved on his C3 tyres to bring the benchmark down to a 1m19.689s, just over a tenth slower than Lando Norris’s day one session-topping time.
Leclerc’s best effort was 0.229s faster than AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and six tenths clear of morning pacesetter Daniel Ricciardo.
Both Gasly and Ricciardo set their fastest laps on the softer C4 tyres.
Mercedes’ new signing George Russell drove in the afternoon and set the fourth-quickest time ahead of Carlos Sainz, who was in the Ferrari in the morning.
Sainz reported that Ferrari’s testing programme has been so far carried out “without pretty much a single issue”.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was sixth-fastest ahead of Perez and the Haas of Nikita Mazepin.
A damaged fuel pump meant Mazepin caused the second flag of the day in the afternoon after just nine laps of running.
Mazepin was able to return to the track later in the session and his last-minute effort on the C3 tyres moved him up to eighth place.
Williams’ Alexander Albon was ninth ahead of the sole 2022 F1 rookie Guanyu Zhou, who logged more laps for Alfa in the afternoon than the team had completed in the previous one-and-a-half days.
Albon’s team-mate Nicholas Latifi was 11th ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Haas driver Mick Schumacher.
Esteban Ocon was 14th for Alpine and he completed his fastest lap without the aid of DRS – something Alpine has avoided using in the test after discovering an issue with it.
The timesheet was rounded out by former Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).
Session results
1. Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m19.689s, C3, 79 laps
2. Gasly (AlphaTauri) 1m19.918s, C4, 147 laps
3. Ricciardo (McLaren) 1m20.288s, C4, 126 laps
4. Russell (Mercedes)1m20.537s, C3, 66 laps
5. Sainz (Ferrari) 1m20.546s, C3, 71 laps
6. Vettel (Aston Martin) 1m20.784s, C3, 74 laps
7. Perez (Red Bull) 1m21.430s, C2, 78 laps
8. Mazepin (Haas) 1m21.512s, C3, 42 laps
9. Albon (Williams) 1m21.531s, C3, 47 laps
10. Zhou (Alfa Romeo) 1m21.885s, C3, 71 laps
11. Latifi (Williams) 1m21.894s, C3, 61 laps
12. Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m21.920s, C2, 55 laps
13. Schumacher (Haas) 1m21.949s, C3, 66 laps
14. Ocon (Alpine) 1m22.164s, C3, 125 laps
15. Bottas (Alfa Romeo) 1m22.288s, C3, 21 laps
16. Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m22.562s, C2, 40 laps
