F1 Testing Report | Fire, Fast Ferrari, and Red Flags on Day 2

Day 2 of Testing has been completed with an eye-watering quick benchmark set by Carlos Sainz which sees the Ferrari man faster than anyone by almost half a second in what seems to be a dominant display of pace from the Scuderia.

Early into the afternoon session, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz set a lap-time that would not be beaten for the rest of the day. A 1:33.532 saw a benchmark that no other team was able to beat despite it being set while the sun was still out, in much higher temperatures. All the lips in the paddock are whispering that Ferrari are the team to beat and this showing can only back-up this feeling.

Red Flags were the name of the game today in testing with multiple big failures plaguing the teams as they desperately attempt to gain as much mileage as possible in Testing. The first, and biggest, issue of the day happened in the morning with the Williams of Nicholas Latifi catching fire in the rear wheel-covers, putting an end to the team’s running for the day. Luckily Latifi was quick to hop out, but this incident was not the only issue of today’s running. Issues for Sebastian Vettel saw him forced to end running early in the morning session, with Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris seeing stoppages in the afternoon session but were able to continue their running.

For the first time of the 2022 season, Kevin Magnussen saw some running in the Haas today. Even after a year out of Formula 1, the Dane was almost immediately back on the pace, after a few sketchy sideways moments. Once Magnussen got into the motions of things he immediately started to impress, setting a lap-time faster than his teammate, Mick Schumacher.

Even after the Barcelona test two-weeks ago, and the first day of Testing yesterday, porpoising still seems like a massive problem for a lot of the teams. Most prominently, the reigning Constructors’ Champions, Mercedes seem to have it the worst. More often than not, the W13 could be seen bouncing up and down while it flew down the main straight, and even through certain corners. Will the teams be able to dial out this issue or will it be something that they will have to deal with all season long? Only time will tell.

Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) 1:33.532 (C4)

Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +0.532 (C4)

Esteban Ocon (Alpine) +0.744 (C4)

Lando Norris (Mclaren) +1.077 (C3)

Kevin Magnussen (Haas) +2.973 (C3)

Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) +3.455 (C2)

George Russell (Mercedes) +5.053 (T)

Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) +6.452 (T)