Vettel tops timesheet on second day of testing at Barcelona

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

Sebastian Vettel topped the times on the second day of testing at Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona. His time set just on Pirelli's new ultra-softs before noon remained best as teams focused on longer runs in the afternoon.

Due to the reduced number of testing days this year, teams are attempting to get more done on a single day, resulting in a massive amount of laps completed by most cars. A new all-time record was set, predictably, by Mercedes as Nico Rosberg completed 172 laps, another 14 more than Hamilton's record from the day before.

He wasn't the only one doing a lot of work however, as 8 from the 11 cars today on track completed more than 100 laps.

Renault Sport F1 was not among those active teams, as Jolyon Palmer felt his car come to a 70 minutes into the afternoon session. A bit later, he reported that was the end of the day for him, stuck on just 42 laps, but still more than what they managed the day before.

Done for the day, but 42 laps is better than 37 laps. Moving in the right direction at least 👍 #feelingpositive pic.twitter.com/WY3MwP0E9x

— Jolyon Palmer (@JolyonPalmer) February 23, 2016

Apart from Palmer's red flag, only Sebastian Vettel brought out reds. As that happened just 4 minutes before the scheduled end of the session, the day was closed altogether.

...

For notes on the morning session, please check our earlier report.