Grosjean fastest again in disrupted Barcelona testing

Romain Grosjean was once again fastest for Lotus at Barcelona, with the Frenchman topping the timings for the second day in a row.


Jean-Eric Vergne was fastest in the morning

Today's session was disrupted heavily though by fog in the morning, which meant that the session ended an hour and a half later than planned, the organisers allowing that to compensate for the lost time caused by tge fog. Grosjean was the fastest man for Lotus with a time of 1.22.614, meaning he was the only man to get into the 1.22s today. Grosjean also completed a massive 124 laps, the Frenchman beginning to make up for last week's lost time, when the team had to pull out of the whole session. Grosjean went out late in the day on soft tyres and took the fastest time by just over half a second. Lotus split their day into two distinct sections, with the team focusing on aerodynamic work and short setup runs in the morning, while the afternoon was devoted to longer stints. Jean-Eric Vergne was second fastest in the Toro Rosso car, with the French rookie bringing out just one of eight red flags which were brought out during the day. The Toro Rosso man stopped on track, shortly after setting a time to go fastest, and after stopping on track, he was missing from the majority of the rest of the day. The reigning double world champion Sebastian Vettel was back out on track in the RB8 today, and was third fastest, despite bringing out one of the red flags when he stopped. Vettel used the medium tyres for his fastest time. The World Champion said "It's normal in the last couple of days of testing that you always bring some bits on the car, so the car is as close as what we race in the first race."


Nico Hulkenberg leaves the Force India garage

Fourth fastest was Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari, with Alonso completing Ferrari's first race simulation of the winter testing programmes. Alonso's best time came on hards, but the most interesting piece of information from his day was his race simulation took place at the same time as Romain Grosjean's. The two did appear closely matched, but the Ferrari was clearly quicker on outright pace, as well as the fact that Alonso used the harder tyres. Fifth fastest today was Heikki Kovalainen in the Caterham, who used the super-soft tyres to get himself high up the rankings. Kovalainen is back behind the cockpit. Kamui Kobayashi lost over an hour's running with a hydraulic leak, while Nico Hulkenberg was seventh despite only completing 33 laps, with his car suffering a driveline issue. Michael Schumacher was ninth but caused two red flags, when his car stopped, and when he slid off the track. Lewis Hamilton was a surprisingly low ninth, but spent most of the day in the garage. Both Williams cars ran today, and Bruno Senna was faster, but completed 28 more laps than his team mate, who brought out a red flag today.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1.22.614
2	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	1.23.126
3	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1.23.361
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1.23.447
5	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	1.23.828
6	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1.23.836
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1.23.893
8	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1.23.978
9	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1.24.111
10	Bruno Senna	Williams	1.24.925
11	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1.25.801

Keep with my blog for all the opinions, launches and testing updates throughout the winter, as we count down to the Australian Grand Prix.