The rain in Spain once again fell mainly on the complaining F1 teams as the second day of the second pre-season Jerez test went the way of all the rest.
The most extreme reaction to yet another day of poor weather came from BMW Sauber, who sent Pedro de la Rosa for a quick eight-lap sniff of the circuit, decided there wasn’t much point in continuing, and called it a day.
Of the teams that did stick it out Lotus had the worst day, Heikki Kovalainen completing 30 laps before losing the car, hitting the tyre wall and damaging the front wing beyond repair.
They joined BMW-Sauber on the sidelines for the rest of the day, awaiting a replacement part.
Fastest driver of the day was Rubens Barrichello for Williams. The Grove team started pre-season testing by running its new Cosworth engine to extremes but, with that done, the focus switched to improving the performance of the car itself.
Technical director Sam Michael said: “Rubens finished off another wet day in Jerez having covered a lot of mileage for reliability. He also completed some systems checks and carried out a programme of pitstop practice. All the pitstops were done under wet conditions and we’re working on some refinements for tomorrow when Nico [Hulkenberg] will take over.”
Behind the veteran Barrichello was the rookie Vitaly Petrov, who was the only driver to come within a second of the Williams car’s pace. Yesterday’s timesheet-topper, Sebastian Vettel, was third-fastest for Red Bull ahead of Nico Rosberg for Mercedes and Felipe Massa for Ferrari.
Despite his very limited running, de la Rosa set the sixth-best time while Paul di Resta was again in action for Force India and outpaced his colleague Vitantonio Liuzzi. The pair were split by Virgin’s Timo Glock, who finally managed to put in a decent number of laps.
McLaren again sent Lewis Hamilton out, but not in search of speed as he was more than 4.5 seconds off Barrichello’s pace and ahead only of Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi and the unfortunate Kovalainen.
Jerez test times day two
- Rubens Barrichello, Williams: 1:27.145 (98 laps)
- Vitaly Petrov, Renault: 1:27.828 (56 laps)
- Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull: 1:28.162 (70 laps)
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes: 1:28.515 (71 laps)
- Felipe Massa, Ferrari: 1:28.879 (92 laps)
- Pedro de la Rosa, Sauber: 1:29.691 (8 laps)
- Paul di Resta, Force India: 1:30.344 (33 laps)
- Timo Glock, Virgin: 1:30.476 (72 laps)
- Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India: 1:30.666 (24 laps)
- Lewis Hamilton, McLaren: 1:31.633 (57 laps)
- Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso: 1:32.678 (57 laps)
- Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus: 1:33.554 (30 laps)