Pre-Season F1 Testing 2022: Leclerc Leads Day 2 as Perez & Mazepin Bring Out Red Flags

Ferrari had a rather productive opening day of winter testing at Circuit de Catalunya on Wednesday and the trend seems to have followed the Reds into day 2 as well. Charles Leclerc, the driver who had a scintillating 2021 F1 season, managed to deliver the perfect kind of start to this year as well.

The Monegasque topped the timesheets on day two of pre-season testing by setting the fastest lap time of 1:19:689. What’s more, Leclerc also completed a total of 79 laps while his teammate, Carlos Sainz, completed ten less with 69 laps on the board.

Hence, adding up to 148 laps, this has to be the most successful day yet for the Maranello outfit on the whole. Ferrari are looking threatening at the moment and could well find their way at the top battling for the championship alongside Red Bull and Mercedes. But, before we get too ahead of ourselves, here’s how day 2 of testing in Spain panned out.

For the first time this year, F1 had to bring out the red flags, not only once but twice.

Busy day 2 for F1 drivers

Quite unusually, Sergio Perez brought out the red flags after stopping his car on the track late in the morning. The Mexican then had to spend an awful lot of time in the garage as the engineers find their way past the gremlins. Eventually, quite late in the day, Perez made his presence on the track and went on to clinch P7 in the timesheets.

The other driver who caused a bit of trouble was Nikita Mazepin after the Russian parked his car on the track after the engineers took note of a damaged fuel pump. Hence, the teams had to take up a 15-minute break before the lights went green again.

Mazepin, on the other hand, took an hour to continue with his test runs. Ultimately, the Haas driver clinched P8 and just over 1.5 seconds quicker than the leader, Leclerc.

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Day 2 classification

1. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
2. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)
3. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
4. George Russell (Mercedes)
5. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
6. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)
7. Sergio Perez (Red Bull Racing)
8. Nikita Mazepin (Haas)
9. Alexander Albon (Williams)
10. Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo)
11. Nicholas Latifi (Williams)
12. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
13. Mick Schumacher (Haas)
14. Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
15. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)
16. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

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