09/03/2017
NEWS STORY
Much like the boring preparation work before decorating or cooking a meal, following the excitement of this morning's session this afternoon was given over to the boring, mundane, prosaic stuff like long runs and race sims.
Whereas we wanted to see drivers fit the supersofts and ultrasofts and give it some welly, we were reduced do watching how 'outsiders' view our sport, cars going round and round.
This morning's star, Sebastian Vettel was one of several drivers who switched focus this afternoon to a race simulation.
Best laid plans and all that, unfortunately Daniil Kvyat, on a race sim of his own, suffered an issue which caused the first red flag of the afternoon and consequently an interruption to the sims of Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.
There was a second red flag later in the afternoon, this time the hapless Jolyon Palmer suffering an issue which left the Renault stranded on track.
Ironically, in a bid to make up track time for the Briton who has encountered all manner of issues, the team changed its original plan of putting Nico Hulkenberg in the car this afternoon, instead giving Palmer the whole day. Over the course of the two sessions he managed 53 laps.
While this morning was about speed and excitement, this afternoon was about sheer hard work... the boring stuff.
For a good example look no further than Williams. Having been the pace-setter on Tuesday, and runner-up yesterday, this afternoon Felipe Massa took over the Williams from Lance Stroll. Over the course of the morning the youngster completed 85 laps, albeit with a best time 5.8s off the pace.
Step up Mr Massa, and the Brazilian puts another 80 laps on the clock, but he too is over 5s off the pace.
Clearly Williams has a cunning plan... we just wish we knew what it is.
Though mundane, it was a fruitful and busy day for the likes of Esteban Ocon who completed 137 laps in a car which, according to his teammate, has many weaknesses.
Trust us Sergio, these are weaknesses Fernando and Stoffel would regard as strengths.
What with his race sim, Daniel Ricciardo completed 128 laps, though the RB13 is still something of an unknown quantity.
Only driving this afternoon, Valtteri Bottas managed 95 laps, which meant 147 over the course of the day for the W08. Quite awesome.
And a decent day's work by the likes of Daniil Kvyat and Marcus Ericsson, though the latter's gap to the top of the timesheets was rather more about the shortcomings of the package beneath him, as opposed to the Williams duo that he finished ahead of.
And then there's McLaren.
Following a torrid morning which saw Stoffel Vandoorne stranded on track twice, thankfully he wasn't the cause of an red flags this afternoon. Then again, that's probably because he only completed a further 15 laps.
And on the subject of McLaren, can it be right that on the penultimate day of pre-season testing, when others are on long runs, even race simulations, the MCL32 was still being sent out for one lap bursts bearing flo-vis. That is not a Honda power issue, no sir.
While today was the last time that the likes of Vettel will drive their cars before FP1 in Melbourne, while others, like Hamilton, Bottas, Raikkonen, Verstappen and… Alonso, get another shot tomorrow.
Hopefully we'll see another morning like this morning, and maybe an afternoon... like this morning.
Weather: sunny and dry; air 12 degrees C – 22 degrees, track 14 degrees – 30 degrees