28/02/2017
NEWS STORY
Having carefully avoided the soft compound yesterday, when Sebastian Vettel was on duty, today Ferrari relented and allowed Kimi Raikkonen to try the yellow-banded tyres.
And while we keep telling you that it is far too early to be paying too much attention to times, not only did the Finn snatch the top spot away from this morning's pace-setter Lewis Hamilton, the Briton's best time was posted on the red-banded supersofts.
All in all it appeared to be a pretty untroubled session for Raikkonen who quietly got on with his programme and by the end of play had put another 108 laps on the SF70H.
Furthermore however, the car looks good, appearing to be more settled that the Mercedes, which appeared to be struggling, especially in Valtteri Bottas's hands this afternoon.
While Hamilton completed 66 laps his morning - enough for a race distance - teammate Bottas went one better this afternoon, the Finn actually completing a simulated race.
Though, as we said, the car looked a bit of a handful, and got through the first set of tyres in 11 laps, times were good and consistent. Indeed, the very fact that Mercedes can contemplate - far less execute - a race distance at this early stage should worry its rivals... though possibly not Ferrari.
Despite missing the opening ninety minutes after the lunch break it was a pretty uneventful day for Max Verstappen as the Dutchman completed 89 laps in the Red Bull on his way to posting the third best time of the day.
Though 1.24s off the pace, the team appears confident and backs up Daniel Ricciardo's claim yesterday that there is a lot more to come.
A good day for Haas where Kevin Magnussen was on duty for the second consecutive day. The Dane was another driver who had a good solid day remaining out of the limelight, a late switch to supersofts seeing him grab fourth on the timesheets from Ocon.
With another 118 laps under its belt, Haas appears to have good reason to feel confident.
Sidelined for the first couple of hours by the same exhaust issue that hampered Sergio Perez yesterday, when he did appear Esteban Ocon was soon on the pace, the Frenchman posting 24.488 to go fourth. Subsequently improving to third, all was going well until the car ground to a halt in T9 bringing out the red flag.
While it looked as though the session wouldn't be re-started, the organisers opted to over-run the morning session by five minutes which was at least good news for Jolyon Palmer and Antonio Giovinazzi... of whom more later.
Back on track in the afternoon, Ocon was another of the 'leave me alone, I know what I'm doing' brigade, ending the day fifth with 86 laps under his belt.
An uneventful day for Daniil Kvyat also, the Russian completing 68 laps on his way to posting the sixth best time and only 1.9996s off the pace.
Having missed almost all this morning's running, only emerging during the five minutes extra time that followed Ocon's stoppage, Jolyon Palmer will be relieved to have completed 52 laps in the afternoon.
The reason for the lack of action earlier was due to the fact that the French team was awaiting a number of parts, including brake ducts, to be flown out from Enstone.
The Briton posted his first time of the day just five minutes into the afternoon session and subsequently continued improving, though the French team remains 3.179s off the pace.
Standing in for Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber, Antonio Giovinazzi lost track time this morning following an engine issue which necessitated a change of power unit.
The Sauber, which looks a handful at the best of times, looked even worse in the strong winds that blasted the circuit for much of the day, and while a number of drivers had moments, especially in the final corner, the Italian had one of the biggest 'saves' of the day. The fact that he went on to post his best time indicated that he wasn't at all put out by the incident.
It was another - let's call it 'difficult', indeed 'trying' - day for McLaren. Just minutes into the session the Belgian ground to a halt as he entered the pitlane, evoking memories of teammate Fernando Alonso yesterday. The situation wasn't helped by Honda claiming this was down to a set-up issue. This had nothing to do with set-up, the car had ground to a halt.
We were almost ninety minutes into the session before the Belgian youngster posted a time, after which he completed a series of short runs punctuated by long spells in the garage. Indeed, at the lunch break he had completed just 29 laps.
Finally, Honda revealed that for the second successive day it needed to change the engine in the MCL32, consequently we were almost three hours into the afternoon session before the orange and black car emerged.
Again, brief spells on track were punctuated by long debriefs, at one stage teammate Alonso joining in - or possibly asking if there were any locals bars they could retire to.
In the final moments of the session the Belgian posted 25.600 to leapfrog Lance Stroll and claim tenth on the timesheets, albeit 4.64s off the pace.
As for Stroll, as previously reported, the Canadian, who was an early pace-setter, had a pretty innocuous spin early on. However, it transpired that the car was more damaged than first thought and the team had to curtail the days running as it waited on part to be repaired.
All in all, an interesting day with some clearly struggling and others already looking set for Melbourne. Ominously however, the top three, at close of play, were Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, though at least Force India appears to have a couple of teams breathing down its neck.
Finally, as if the 'dorsal fins' and T-Wings weren't bad enough by the way, today Mercedes and Williams both sported additional elements on their T-Wings, giving rise to fears that unless the powers-that-be act soon we could be seeing third and fourth elements. Anyone remember the awful X-wings?