Rookie F1

On a chilly day in Barcelona Perez was the first driver to post a sub 1:22 lap time, on soft tyres, which was unable to be matched by another. Although in the morning the times were considerably slower than the previous day, as the temperatures rose the times dropped. Perez spent the valuable time getting to grips with the car with shorter runs in the morning followed up with race simulations in the afternoon.

Despite triggering a red flag with 45 minutes left of the day Vettel still managed to set the second fastest time, he stopped at the end of the pitlane after a practice race pitstop resulted in a loose wheel and revealed later that they stopped the car earlier after a small pressure drop.

Raikkonen’s second day in Barcelona wasn’t without issue and following on from a data issue yesterday his running was cut short again with a gearbox change leaving him frustrated. By midday he had only completed four laps and had yet to set a time. Hamilton, making up for laps lost by Rosberg yesterday went into the triple figures around the Catalunya circuit comparing exhaust systems.

Alonso’s running was interrupted by an exhaust problem that led to overheating the surrounding bodywork that subsequently needed to be replaced. Bottas followed up behind with his first run in the newly launched FW35, focusing on aero in the morning he left the day able to see the progress from its predecessor.

A couple of tenths behind was Ricciardo who like others concentrated on aero work in the morning, then Di Resta ahead of his 2012 team mate Hulkenberg who again had an aero orientated morning.

Chilton triggered the second red flag of the day and ended the session with four minutes left on the clock when he stopped between turns 12 and 13, however he managed to leave a gap of a second between himself and last years driver Pic. Although last Pic squeezed 102 laps out of his Caterham.