Rookie F1

It was Grosjean’s turn to top the timing sheets in Jerez on the second day of testing, he was fastest in the morning session and followed suit in the afternoon, and with no reliability issues to report the E21 looks set to continue its good record from last season.

Force India’s di Resta improved his time from yesterday and completed a healthy 95 laps concentrating on aero and set up before he handed the machine over to James Rossiter in the afternoon, who slotted himself between Maldonado and van der Garde. Ricciardo finished the day satisfied with the performance of the car and the direction it is heading in after having collected more test data.

Webber was the first driver to go into triple figures which hints at the reliability that saw them dominate the last few seasons, good for them perhaps, not for the rest of the field. However graining was an issue on the softer compound, which isn’t surprising considering the nature of the circuit. Hulkenberg was one lap short of triple figures but spent his day comparing all tyre compounds which should give him and the team an important early insight into the differences from last year.

Hamilton’s day only went one lap further than Rosberg’s yesterday as his day was cut short due to a loss of rear brake pressure as he headed into the hairpin, without the means to stop he travelled across the gravel and thumped into the tyre barrier. Unhurt he headed back to the pits and will have to wait until the final day of testing to up his lap total, although he said he left today feeling positive.

Perez made his McLaren debut and took his car for the year out for a spin, although he wasn’t able to match Button’s time, he did complete over twice as many laps for the team. Asked after the session what he thought of the car his most used word was ‘different’ which isn’t altogether surprising. Massa spent his day focused on a number of exhaust configurations and gathering data about them.

Maldonado was still in the 2012 spec car and so spent the day concentrating on getting to grips with the new tyres. Rossiter and newly confirmed Razia also took to the track for the first time this year and bookend van der Garde, freshly appointed Razia suffered an engine issue and was forced to stop out on track and cut his day short.