Pre-season testing recap: Week 2, Day 2

Date: Thursday, February 27

Location / Layout: Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya, Spain / 4.655-kilometer (2.892-mile), 16-turn circuit

Driver: Kevin Magnussen

Laps / Distance: 111 laps / 516.705-kilometers (321.012-miles)

Best Lap Time: 1:18.225 (9th overall)

Fastest Lap: 1:16.841 by Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Ferrari

Most Laps: 160 laps by Nicholas Latifi of Williams

The penultimate day of pre-season testing at Circuit de Barcelona - Catalunya saw Kevin Magnussen back behind the wheel of the Haas VF-20 Thursday. The Dane recorded a total of 111 laps around the 4.655-kilometer (2.892-mile) Spanish venue adding to the 110 he accumulated in last week’s opening test.

Magnussen’s fastest time of the day was a 1:18.225 to place 9th overall on the timesheet from 13 drivers.

Overnight rain meant for the first time in pre-season testing Pirelli’s Cinturato intermediate tires were called into action – Magnussen utilizing a set for his installation lap on the damp track. It was mid-morning before conditions dried out, Magnussen spending the two hours prior to the lunch break on a series of short stints on the C3 tire for 31 laps. Further baseline outings followed in the afternoon, utilizing the C2 tire for 20 laps, before Magnussen set to work on a 60-lap race simulation which ran through to the checkered flag.

Friday’s final day of pre-season testing sees Magnussen back in the VF-20 in the morning before Grosjean concludes the on-track action in the afternoon.

Kevin Magnussen, Car No. 20

“Overall, it’s been a very positive day. We were delayed a little bit at the start of the day as we chose not to run in the wet conditions at all, we simply did our install lap then waited for things to dry. We got a full race simulation in at the end of the day, which was nice to get completed before we head to Australia. It’s always very interesting to get your first feeling of how the car evolves over a race distance. Today allowed us to experience that for the first time and it was very positive. We’ll keep working tomorrow and look ahead to Australia.”

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal

“Just another day of testing really, nothing exciting happened today, you could say it was uneventful. We got out a bit late because of the weather, that was the same problem for everyone else. We get a race simulation in today, we thought we might struggle with the delayed start, but we got it in. It’s one of the things we wanted to tick off our check list and it went well. One more day to go now.”