Barcelona Pre-Season Testing – 2: The Complete Report

The winter testing preceding the start of the 2016 season concluded Friday evening in Spain, on the Barcelona track.

Even though it is very difficult to draw definitive conclusions about a true hierarchy before the first Grand Prix of the season, which will take place on the weekend of March 20 in Australia, some lessons can nevertheless be learned from it.

First of all, it now seems inevitable that Mercedes will once again be the cars to beat in 2016. Indeed, during this second week, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have once again demonstrated their consistency and performance. Without really chasing the clock, both drivers have still managed to worry the competition, if not already discourage them.

The Ferraris, however, seem to be the best equipped to thwart the plans of the Silver Arrows. Sebastian Vettel even finishes the week at the top of the timesheets and, despite some reliability issues, the SF16-H seems to be well-born. Moreover, Kimi Räikkönen leaves with the fastest time of the week in his pocket.

On the side of new developments, Sauber unveiled its new designs this week and performed well on the track with over 400 laps completed. A luxury that the new Haas F1 Team could not afford, mired in technical problems and leaving Barcelona without having reached the 200-lap mark during this second week.

Satisfaction, on the other hand, in the McLaren camp where the restored reliability allowed Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button to complete a significant number of laps to gain valuable time on track to refine the challenging Honda engine. With the 13th and 14th fastest times of the week, the Briton and the Spaniard do not impress, but the main focus lies elsewhere.

During the first week, while the Force Indias had somewhat impressed, they have now fallen back in line, unlike the Williams cars which have shown their presence at the top of the time sheets, with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas ranking 5th and 6th this week.

The sensation of the week will go to Carlos Sainz, who, at the wheel of a Toro Rosso powered by a 2015 version Ferrari engine, managed to slip into the final Top 5 thanks to an excellent 4th fastest time achieved on the last day of these winter tests.

Here are the complete summary tables of these pre-season tests, the second and final part with the first table, featuring the best time of each driver as well as their number of laps completed:

In the second table are listed the best times by team as well as the total laps completed: