Valtteri Bottas put Williams on top for the first time in Formula 1 pre-season testing as he set the pace on day two of the second week at Barcelona.
The Finn clocked a 1m23.261s on the super-soft tyres in the afternoon, having completed a series of qualifying simulations on the soft tyres.
Mercedes split driving duties again with Lewis Hamilton’s leading time from the morning,set on the softs, good enough for second, 0.361 seconds off the pace.
His team-mate Nico Rosberg focused on running the mediums in the afternoon and ended the day ninth as Mercedes logged an impressive 164 laps.
Ferrari had comfortably its most productive day of testing so far as Sebastian Vettel completed 151 laps while focusing mainly on set-up work on the medium tyres.
The German was fourth fastest, behind Renault’s Kevin Magnussen who logged 126 laps.
A small suspension issue confined Jenson Button’s McLaren to the garage just before lunch, but he caught up in the afternoon and ended the day fifth, with 121 laps to his name.
Red Bull focused on pitstop practice for much of the morning, with owner Dietrich Mateschitz keeping an eye on the action from the pitwall.
Daniel Ricciardo’s attention turned to longer runs in the afternoon and he ended the day sixth, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, whose individual tally of 166 was the highest of the day, and Sergio Perez.
Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson recovered from a delayed start to log 55 laps before stopping on track with one hour to go.
The red flag was duly shown, but the Swede managed to get back out just before the end of the day.
It was a miserable day for Haas, with Esteban Gutierrez managing just one lap due to turbo problems.
WEDNESDAY TIMES:
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1m23.261s | – | 108 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m23.622s | 0.361s | 73 |
| 3 | Kevin Magnussen | Renault | 1m23.933s | 0.672s | 126 |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m24.611s | 1.350s | 151 |
| 5 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1m25.183s | 1.922s | 121 |
| 6 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m25.235s | 1.974s | 135 |
| 7 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m25.300s | 2.039s | 166 |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1m25.593s | 2.332s | 128 |
| 9 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m26.298s | 3.037s | 91 |
| 10 | Pascal Wehrlein | Manor/Mercedes | 1m27.064s | 3.803s | 79 |
| 11 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m27.487s | 4.226s | 55 |
| – | Esteban Gutierrez | Haas/Ferrari | – | – | 1 |
