2024 F1 pre-season testing: what we learned from Day 2

Ferrari topped the timesheet on the second day of F1 pre-season testing, which was dominated by red.

A loose drain cover caused the morning session to be red-flagged, but not before it was dislodged by Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes then run over by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, damaging his floor in the process and reviving memories of last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Teams lost more than 80 minutes from the stoppage, which brought the session to a premature end, but clawed most of it back when the four-hour afternoon session was extended by an hour.

The previous day brought a continuation of 2023, as Max Verstappen went more than a second faster than anybody else with a 1min 31.344sec lap. Carlos Sainz was quicker on the second day, though, topping the table with a 1min 29.921sec lap on the C4 soft tyre, two-tenths shy of last year’s pole time. McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull all set their fastest times on the harder C3 tyre and, as ever, it’s not known what fuel loads or engine settings were being used.

Much like yesterday, aero rakes and flo-vis paint were spotted during the early running, as teams sought to correlate data from their simulations with real-world figures.

Here’s everything we learned on Day 2 of pre-season testing.

F1 2024 pre-season testing: fastest times on Day 2

2024’s first red flag 

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc inadvertently caused the first red flag of 2024, as the Briton’s Mercedes loosened a piece of drain from the entry kerb at Turn 11, before Leclerc’s Ferrari ran over it moments later.

The Ferrari floor was damaged by the collision and replaced over the lunch time break. The team is still trying to get compensation for the the damage caused by a loose drain cover in practice for last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. No doubt its lawyers will be drafting a second letter.

Even 20 minutes of lost time can force teams to change their test programmes, prioritising certain runs and dropping others in the hope of collecting the data later in the season.

Sergio Perez’s brake fire

Max Verstappen enjoyed a smooth first day of testing while racking up 129 laps on the first day of testing, but the same could not be said for team-mate Sergio Perez, whose brakes overheated and caught fire during the first 15 minutes of Day 2.

The team was able to extinguish the fire quickly, and soon got to work on fixing the issue.

It initially did little to slow Perez down, who upon returning to the circuit, rocketed to the top of the standings and began lapping only a second off the pace of Leclerc’s Ferrari — although he only completed 20 laps in total throughout the morning session. As a result, the Mexican, who had planned to hand over to Verstappen at lunch, remained in the hot-seat for the remainder of the day, but he seemingly struggled to find the right set-up, locking up repeatedly.

Perez ended the day with the third-fastest time and his split-running with Verstappen has now been pushed until tomorrow.

Williams’ new steering wheel 

After a troublesome start to pre-season testing, Williams has broken with tradition with a brand new steering wheel. The Grove outfit previously used a unique design, seemingly inspired by Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing — with two prominent yokes either side of a divot in the middle. The information screen was then fixed to the car itself.

Williams had previously stated that this design was chosen to make the steering wheel lighter, reducing the physical effort needed to turn. But a change of heart brought a more modern design — in line with the rest of the paddock — for Day 2 of pre-season testing.

It’s unlikely to be down to the steering wheel, but Logan Sargeant quickly set the third fastest time of the morning session. More reliability issues in the afternoon ultimately cut the team’s session short.

Williams also teased a new design for its steering wheel (as seen below) in a recent video showcasing the new FW46, which was in use during the afternoon session.

Valtteri Bottas’s ‘Northern Lights’ helmet 

Valtteri Bottas chose Day 2 of pre-season testing to reveal his new helmet for the coming campaign, which is focused around the Northern Lights, a common occurrence in his native Finland.

The all-green helmet was designed by Bottas’ long-term partner Tiffany Cromwell and mimics the view that the Finn has seen many times growing up in his hometown of Nastola. including a prominent Northern Star and other star constellations.

Unfortunately, the unique design is rather overshadowed by Sauber’s neon green livery.

Track limits at Turn 4

Although not enforced during testing, talk of track limits have already began to surface. Throughout Day 2, multiple drivers — including Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo Pierre Gasly — ran overly wide at Turn 4 and breached the white track-limits line before re-joining the circuit ahead of Turn 5.

It’s a corner they’ll want to get right ahead of competitive action in just one week’s time, given the qualifying and time penalties that breaches can incur. Not to mention the overtakes that must be reversed, as in 2021.

While trying to pass Lewis Hamilton for the race lead, Max Verstappen’s drove around the outside of Turn 4 and drifted just wide of the white line. Consequently he was ordered to give the place back, which ultimately led to Hamilton’s victory.

Hamilton’s Mercedes unsettled…until it wasn’t 

Lewis Hamilton’s final season at Mercedes failed to get off to a storming start, as the seven-time world champion repeatedly struggled with excessive oversteer and washed wide at numerous corners during his first stints in the W15. But as the final hour of Thursday’s running drew to a close, he finally found his stride and ultimately set the third-fastest lap time of the session on the C3 medium tyre compound, just over a second off of Carlos Sainz fastest time set on the C4 soft tyre, which is around 0.5sec faster than the C3.

The Brackley outfit hasn’t produced a regularly competitive car since 2021, but hoped to have ironed out all the bumps ahead of 2024. Its progress throughout Day 2 of testing suggests that Mercedes is on the right path, and could give Hamilton at least a shot at victory before he leaves.

But should testing go downhill from here and should Mercedes fail to produce a competitive car for the third consecutive season, it will only justify Hamilton’s Maranello-move even more.

McLaren are quick…but possibly problematic? 

McLaren appears to have continued its upward trajectory that began midway through the 2023 campaign. Following seven podiums and a sixth-place finish in the drivers’ standings for Lando Norris last year, the Woking outfit has arrived in Bahrain with a seemingly competitive package which the Briton has piloted to the top five of the timesheets on Day 1 and Day 2 of pre-season testing.

The only negative however, is that the MCL38 has been parked in the garage more than most. On Day 1, Norris’ first stint in the car was delayed by 45 minutes due to a floor change and on Day 2 he was forced to wait in the garage for over an hour while mechanics fixed a small fuel system issue.

Of course this is testing — where teams will be hoping to stamp out issues before they crop up during race weekends — so McLaren remains fairly unconcerned for the time being. But it will be something to keep an eye on ahead of Friday’s final sessions.

Who competed the most laps on Day 2?

Even despite the red flag disruptions, teams still managed to clock up some significant mileage during Day 2 of pre-season testing.

Sergio Perez led the way with the most laps completed by a single driver (129) while Ferrari completed the most laps overall — with Charles Leclerc completing 54 laps in the morning ahead of the red flag stoppage, while Carlos Sainz completed 84 in the afternoon.

Due to its time spent in the garage, McLaren completed the fewest laps of any team (87).