Australian GP || March 16 || 15h00 (Local time)

Day 2: Esteban Gutiérrez quickest in Barcelona

Lotus GP ace sets best laptime on Day 2

By Franck Drui

7 March 2012 - 17:38

Esteban Gutiérrez finished at the top of the timesheets today after putting in a laptime of 1:28.740, 0.004s ahead of Giedo van der Garde in a very closely fought morning session. Julian Leal topped the afternoon session ahead of Nigel Melker.

The temperatures were very cold as day two of the second 2012 pre-season testing opened at Circuit de Catalunya. James Calado set the early pace, two hundredths quicker than his teammate Gutiérrez, but the Briton’s laptime was later bettered by GP3 graduate Rio Haryanto. Max Chilton was the first driver to dip under 1m29s in what looked like a qualifying session for most racers as they compared the performance between Pirelli Prime and Option tyres. By mid-session, Gutiérrez went top, a mere 0.008s faster than Chilton whilst Davide Valsecchi also broke the 1m29s barrier and put his DAMS car into P3. In an extremely competitive and trouble-free session, van der Garde found the extra pace to slip into P2, four thousands of a second shy from Gutiérrez’ laptime. At the chequered flag, the top three remained unchanged and were followed by Valsecchi, Stefano Coletti, Luiz Razia, Calado, Fabrizio Crestani, Jolyon Palmer and Fabio Onidi.

After the lunch break, Stéphane Richelmi set the early pace, but his teammate Julian Leal went two tenths quicker and took control of the timesheets early on and remained unchallenged until the chequered flag. The remainder of the three hour session was used by the drivers to work on race simulations and pit stop practice. With only fifteen days left before the season opener in Sepang, the teams’ main focus was on finding the best set up. In the final half hour, Melker went second fastest. Richelmi, Josef Kral, Tom Dillmann (replacing Sergio Canamasas at Rapax), Razia, Jon Lancaster, Ricardo Teixeira, Haryanto and Gutiérrez rounded up the top ten.

Tomorrow’s session will start at 9am local time and run until 12pm. After a one hour break, it will run from 1pm until 4pm.

Morning results

Pos	Driver	Team	Laptime	Laps
1.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Lotus GP	1:28.740	36
2.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Racing	1:28.744	30
3.	Max Chilton	Carlin	1:28.748	29
4.	Davide Valsecchi	DAMS	1:28.785	25
5.	Stefano Coletti	Scuderia Coloni	1:29.047	24
6.	Luiz Razia	Arden International	1:29.065	35
7.	James Calado	Lotus GP	1:29.100	37
8.	Fabrizio Crestani	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:29.150	22
9.	Jolyon Palmer	iSport International	1:29.195	21
10.	Fabio Onidi	Scuderia Coloni	1:29.198	27
11.	Tom Dillmann	Rapax	1:29.289	26
12.	Fabio Leimer	Racing Engineering	1:29.339	28
13.	Nathanaël Berthon	Racing Engineering	1:29.397	29
14.	Rio Haryanto	Carlin	1:29.515	26
15.	Jon Lancaster	Ocean Racing Technology	1:29.533	30
16.	Nigel Melker	Ocean Racing Technology	1:29.540	28
17.	Marcus Ericsson	iSport International	1:29.547	27
18.	Josef Kral	Barwa Addax Team	1:29.621	32
19.	Felipe Nasr	DAMS	1:29.865	35
20.	Simon Trummer	Arden International	1:29.881	33
21.	Rodolfo Gonzalez	Caterham Racing	1:30.169	36
22.	Johnny Cecotto	Barwa Addax Team	1:30.200	28
23.	Stéphane Richelmi	Trident Racing	1:30.553	24
24.	Julian Leal	Trident Racing	1:30.747	6
25.	Ricardo Teixeira	Rapax	1:31.220	22
26.	Giancarlo Serenelli	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:32.740	37

Afternoon results

Pos	Driver	Team	Laptime	Laps
1.	Julian Leal	Trident Racing	1:29.653	42
2.	Nigel Melker	Ocean Racing Technology	1:29.680	16
3.	Stéphane Richelmi	Trident Racing	1:29.860	37
4.	Josef Kral	Barwa Addax Team	1:29.924	27
5.	Tom Dillmann	Rapax	1:29.937	23
6.	Luiz Razia	Arden International	1:29.970	30
7.	Jon Lancaster	Ocean Racing Technology	1:30.259	34
8.	Ricardo Teixeira	Rapax	1:31.877	28
9.	Rio Haryanto	Carlin	1:32.581	30
10.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Lotus GP	1:32.613	47
11.	Fabio Leimer	Racing Engineering	1:32.751	36
12.	Fabrizio Crestani	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:32.842	21
13.	Giancarlo Serenelli	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:33.089	24
14.	Stefano Coletti	Scuderia Coloni	1:33.154	30
15.	Marcus Ericsson	iSport International	1:33.225	37
16.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Racing	1:33.387	48
17.	Jolyon Palmer	iSport International	1:33.410	41
18.	Felipe Nasr	DAMS	1:33.461	32
19.	Davide Valsecchi	DAMS	1:33.485	32
20.	Max Chilton	Carlin	1:33.485	37
21.	Fabio Onidi	Scuderia Coloni	1:33.616	33
22.	James Calado	Lotus GP	1:33.677	49
23.	Nathanaël Berthon	Racing Engineering	1:33.751	45
24.	Simon Trummer	Arden International	1:33.761	52
25.	Johnny Cecotto	Barwa Addax Team	1:34.542	34
26.	Rodolfo Gonzalez	Caterham Racing	1:35.054	47