Driver: Sergio Perez
Car: RB16B
Laps: 117
Best time: 1:31.682
Circuit length: 5.412km
Sergio Perez took over from Max Verstappen on the second day of pre-season testing with the Mexican enjoying a largely trouble-free day, clocking up 117 laps with the focus on long runs on the harder Pirelli tyre compound. During the afternoon Checo was briefly sidelined by an issue with the left-hand engine cover of his car but after swift repairs he was soon back on track.
Commenting on his first test appearance with the Team, Sergio said: “It was great to do a full day of testing in the RB16B and even though conditions are very tricky out there we got through plenty of work and there is plenty of development to come. It’s great to be working with the Team and I’m getting more and more used to things – I can already feel the potential. I have the morning tomorrow in the car, so I’m looking forward to getting in some more laps.”
Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “Sergio got through a full race simulation today, including pit stops, which was very useful for him as he embeds with the Team even more and gets up to speed with all our procedures. We had a couple of small issues – nothing huge and it didn’t affect our engineering programme, so in a way these are things you want to find out about in testing. Those niggles aside, it was another solid day. It is clear that we have not been chasing lap times and have only run one of the harder compounds, so there are no real conclusions to be drawn from the overall time sheet. All in all, two good days and hopefully we’ll close out the test with another productive day tomorrow.”
