Heikki Kovalainen topped the timesheets on the second day of testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Spain. The Finn secured the position with an unofficial time of one minute, eleven seconds exactly.
Next fastest were the Ferraris of Massa, who brought out the red flags when he stopped on-track due to sensor failure, and Raikkonen, finishing up 0.6 seconds behind McLaren’s latest recruit. Kovalainen’s team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, finished fourth, over a second down on the top placed driver. Fernando Alonso, who swapped with Heikki to go to Renault, finished sixth.
Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Rosberg continued to test the new Williams FW30, finishing the day an optimistic fifth and seventh respectively.
Mark Webber’s revised Red Bull stopped twice out on the track in Valencia, but the Australian remains positive having set the eighth fastest time of the day. “I’m happy with the new car. Today has been encouraging and, so far, it seems to be a big step forward from last year in terms of reliability and speed, which is great. Now we need to work with what we’ve got and get it as fast as possible before Melbourne. We’ve got a big four weeks coming up.”
BMW Sauber languished down in ninth and twelfth positions, while Honda finished up sixteenth and seventeenth, with Barrichello over three and a half seconds off the pace of the fastest McLaren.
