Formula One: 2015 Barcelona Mid-Season Test Recap

For the first midseason test of the 2015, all the teams, except Manor-Marussia, stayed on after the Spanish Grand Prix for more running at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona. While the teams have already run two pre-season tests and a Grand Prix weekend at the track in the last three months, teams are still doing development work.

Day 1 (May 12)

Much like the Grand Prix of the previous weekend, Nico Rosberg and Mercedes were far and away the fastest during the first day of the test. The race winner logged the fastest lap of the day by over two seconds (a time that was faster than his pole time) and ran over two race distances.

Despite not showing any life since scoring double-points in China, Sauber was second with Marcus Ericsson on the day. Is that signs of a comeback? Well, spoilers, based on the second day of the test, it’s not. Ferrari’s Raffaele Marciello was third on the day but ran the second day for Sauber and ended up stone dead last.

Nico Rosberg – Mercedes – 1:24.374
Marcus Ericsson – Sauber-Ferrari – 1:26.624
Raffaele Marciello – Ferrari – 1:26.648
Daniil Kvyat – Red Bull-Renault – 1:26.904
Pastor Maldonado – Lotus-Mercedes – 1:27.338
Nick Yelloly – Force India-Mercedes – 1:27.396
Pierre Gasly – Toro Rosso-Renault – 1:27.639
Felipe Massa – Williams-Mercedes – 1:27.911
Oliver Turvey – McLaren-Honda – 1:28.542

Day 2 (May 13)

Lotus was fastest on the day with Joylon Palmer but he was still about 1.7 seconds off the first day pace set by Rosberg. Pascal Wehrlein was second in the Mercedes but he racked up another 137 laps which means that Mercedes covered over four race distances in two days and pretty well demoralized anyone hoping to catch them before the proposed major rules changes in 2017.

The most interesting news of the day was from the McLaren camp where Jenson Button set the fourth fastest time of the day and completed 100 laps (the fourth most of the day). Considering the team’s struggles with reliability and speed, this was a much-needed boost to the campaign.