Rain spoils day again.
Felipe Massa set the pace at the Circuit de Catalunya on Wednesday, although like on day one the conditions were far from ideal with regular showers ensuring the track remained wet all day.
As such Felipe opted for just 40 laps in his Ferrari F2008, his quickest a 1 minute 30.673 seconds, which was around half a second up on Mark Webber, who was 'best of the rest' for Red Bull.
Felipe spent the day working on some aero updates, while Luca Badoer was also on track for the Scuderia in the sister car. Badoer did 33 tours and ended the day third on the unofficial timesheets.
Further down the order, David Coulthard came in fourth to underline the potential of the RB4 in the wet. DC and Webber both spent proceedings focusing on practice and qualifying simulations, with the Red Bull mechanics carry out several pit-stops in preparation for the new season. With conditions due to be drier on Thursday, the focus will shift to race simulations.
"Although the day had little value in terms of car development, it was still a useful exercise for the team to go through various routines, such as pit stops, in difficult conditions," confirmed a statement from the Milton Keynes-based outfit in its end of day release.
Fernando Alonso was next up for Renault and he did just 28 laps, having sat out the morning session. He concentrated on checking systems on the car and on rehearsing various race procedures in the garage.
"Another disrupted day and we did not do many laps. It was too wet in the morning to do any running so we waited until the afternoon," explained the double world champion. "We did some laps and tried some things in the wet and it was a chance to get used to driving without traction control and to improve the behaviour of the car in these conditions. Tomorrow the forecast is better - we have been waiting for these conditions all week, so fingers crossed."
Of the rest Nico Rosberg was sixth, while Nico Hulkenberg and Kazuki Nakajima were also on track for Williams, although the latter didn't post a time.
"We spent the whole morning practising pit-stops with the race team and both race drivers today," said Williams' test team manager, Dickie Stanford. "We completed approximately 40 pit stops in total.
"Nico Hulkenberg then took over from Kazuki in the afternoon and continued set-up work on the car while Nico ran through some systems checks. The wet conditions really played havoc with the session for the second day in succession but we're expecting a drier day tomorrow, during which we will again run all three drivers."
Toyota's Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli were sandwiched between the Williams' of Rosberg and Hulkenberg in seventh and eighth respectively. Trulli finished with 46 laps of set-up and aerodynamics work, while Timo's track time was a bit more limited. He did 33 tours, conducting an installation lap in the morning before some longer set-up runs in the afternoon.
"That was only half a day's work for me today because the morning was too wet for us to gain anything from testing," Glock stated. "In the afternoon we did some running in the wet conditions - first on heavy wet tyres, changing to standard wet tyres.
"The track conditions changed quite a lot as the track dried out but not enough. It was difficult to draw conclusions but we found a similar picture to the dry which will help us define where we concentrate our work. We have a few more days of testing to work out how to move forward so we will push hard."
"It was another difficult day for testing so we just collected some data in order to understand how the car works in this type of weather," added Trulli. "The positive thing is that we were able to learn about the tyre warm-up behaviour in these conditions.
"I'm returning to test here next week so hopefully we'll have better weather then. We have plenty of work ahead but when the conditions are normal I do feel we can be competitive."
The only other driver in action was Nelson Piquet Jr, but he did only one lap - which was more than any of the McLaren drivers' as the Woking-based squad once again opted not to run.
"It is hard to be patient when you have spent two days waiting around for the weather conditions to improve," Piquet Jr concluded. "I finished the day having completed only a single installation lap - a bit frustrating for me and all members of the team who had hoped that the track conditions would have improved by the end of the day. Tomorrow the track conditions will be better and hopefully we will be able to complete some proper work."
Testing now continues on Thursday.
