Barcelona Test Day 2: Vettel enjoys pace and gets mileage

The day began in muted fashion as overnight snow and rain meant conditions were tricky early on and many teams avoided significant running before the halfway point of running.

Vettel set the fastest time of 1:19.673 on Pirelli soft tyres as he powered to 98 laps at the end of the program which was more than any other driver on the day.

Mercedes opted to keep Valtteri Bottas in the car all day (Lewis Hamilton was scheduled to take over in the afternoon but did not) and by the end of it he was second quickest by 0.3 of a second albeit on medium tyres.

However, the weather was again the big talking point in the paddock as freezing temperatures welcomed people to the race track on Tuesday morning. It remained cold all day, enough for some snow to drop over the area but not disrupt track activity.

After a not ideal start to their new Renault era with Fernando Alonso crashing on Monday, McLaren had a strong second day as Stoffel Vandoorne ended third fastest on the hypersoft tyres - the only team to use these - although the mileage was way down at 37 laps.

Red Bull, who set the pace a day earlier, had problems in the morning with a fuel leak on the RB14 which kept Max Verstappen out of action for most of the morning. But it was all systems go in the afternoon. The Dutchman ended fourth fastest, a mere 0.001 of a second shy of third using mediums.

Verstappen reported, "Warming-up the tyres was difficult because it was very cold, but the first impression of the RB14 is good."

Carlos Sainz was in the Renault RS18 for the first time, ending the day fifth fastest with 65 laps to his credit and making it all three Renault powered cars in the top five.

Also enjoying a positive day were the Toro Rosso and Honda partnership with Pierre Gasly sixth quickest after 82 problem free laps.

Williams new reserve driver Robert Kubica was in action for his first pre-season test since 2011 with a 39 lap run after taking over the RS18 from Sergey Sirotkin, who set the eighth best time in the morning stanza.

Esteban Ocon at the wheel of the Force India VJM11 was ninth fastest, slightly slower than the similarly Mercedes powered Williams drivers.

The two Ferrari powered customer teams propped up the bottom of the timing screens with Charles Leclerc tenth in the Sauber and Kevin Magnussen in the Haas down in 11th, the pair about two seconds off the top time.

Leclerc’s outing wasn’t without mishap as a morning spin into the gravel traps at Turn 4 brought out the red flags for a brief period.