As expected, heavy rain descended on the Spanish track ahead of testing with only 11 drivers braving the rain to set times. In terrible conditions, Kimi Raikkonen once again proved himself the man to beat, setting a benchmark time of 1:30.280, a full 9 seconds down on the previous day’s best.
The rain-storms made conditions extremely changeable, with teams switching between extreme-wet and wet-weather tyres. Development work was severely hampered, and McLaren gave up with their programme after a solitary installation lap by Fernando Alonso in the afternoon.
Mark Webber braved the rain to bring his Red Bull home in second, just ahead of the Renault of Heikki Kovalainen. Although he completed 53 laps, Kovalainen was unable to complete his scheduled programme but he did manage to collect some useful data for the team.
“Clearly, we didn’t follow the programme we have initially planned owing to the poor conditions,” Kovalainen explained. “But it was still a useful day for myself and the team. Personally, I tried to use every lap to improve something: trying a new line or pushing the braking points a bit further. The track was changing all the time, and we were able to run the wet and extreme wet tyres today. To be honest, I enjoy driving in the wet – it’s different to normal and good fun for the drviers.”
Nick Heidfeld completed 17 laps in his BMW Sauber, carrying out systems and balance checks. Tuesday was the last day of testing for Heidfeld with team mate Robert Kubica taking over for the rest of the week.
Nico Rosberg completed 45 laps for Williams, carrying out set-up and race preparation work with his car, despite a heavy crash a day earlier. Barrichello came in sixth for Honda. Trulli clocked in in seventh in his Toyota.
Takuma Sato was unable to hold his pace in the wet, finishing eighth overall, just ahead of the Toro Rosso of Vinantonio Liuzzi. Liuzzi and his team mate Scott Speed swapped in and out of the Toro Rosso car, and Speed finished as the slowest driver of the day, managing less than 10 laps.
Adrian Sutil finished 10th in the orange Spyker. After test driver Adrian Valles’ big smash the day before, Sutil had limited running as the team made hurried repairs to the car.
The team bosses have already decided to allow an extra day of testing on the Thursday because of the rain however Spyker have revealed that they will not be participating on this extra day. Although the team lost most of Tuesday rebuilding their car – an estimated 225 man hours were used up reconstructing the left-hand side of the F8-VII to get it back into track shape – the team have chosen to opt-out.
Barcelona Testing, Day 2 times
1. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:30.280
2. Mark Webber, Red Bull, 1:31.752
3. Heikki Kovalainen, Renault, 1:32.149
4. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber, 1:32.175
5. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 1:32.573
6. Rubens Barrichello, Honda, 1:32.911
7. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 1:32.943
8. Takuma Sato, Super Aguri, 1:33.238
9. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Toro Rosso, 1:33.328
10. Adrian Sutil, Spyker, 1:35.488
11. Scott Speed, Toro Rosso, 1:39.560
