Barcelona I, day 2: Ricciardo on top on day two in Barcelona

He completes 142 laps to finish ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa

Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time of day two of pre-season testing Barcelona, finishing just one hundredth of a second ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

The Red Bull Racing driver set his quickest time half an hour before the lunch break of the soft Pirelli tyres, his time of 1:24.574 edging him ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez. Raikkonen then bolted on a set of soft tyres for a short run to slot into second place on the timesheet with a time of 1:24.584.

Williams’ Felipe Massa got in on the soft-tyre action in the afternoon to claim third spot on the timesheet with two hours left in the session but with track temperatures falling away in the late afternoon that was how the order at the top of the timesheet remained.

After a stop-start opening day yesterday in which Red Bull Racing battled early morning software issues, Ricciardo was quick out of the blocks this morning, at least once he’d been rescued from the end of the pit lane following a glitch as he left the garage for his first run of the day. Thereafter, the Australian ran trouble-free for the day, mixing shorter runs and pit stop practice in the morning, with long runs in the afternoon to eventually racking up the day’s biggest lap total of 140 laps.

“A really good day today and a very satisfying follow-up to yesterday,” said the team’s Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin. “Day one was all about tuning the new elements we had brought here and was always going to be a bit stop-start but by the end of yesterday we were on top of that and running well and today was the reward for all that hard work. We had a small issue on Daniel’s installation lap, again caused by a software gremlin, but that was quickly sorted and we could get to work on the programme we had in place."

Raikkonen, meanwhile, continued to make a case for Ferrari’s winter improvement, with the Finn completing 90 laps across the day.

At Mercedes, Nico Rosberg conducted the team’s morning running, taking over from reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein who had replaced the ill Lewis Hamilton for the bulk of the team’s day one running.

Rosberg has been a doubt due to an inflamed nerve in his neck but the German completed 66 laps in the morning session without difficulty. However, on the advice of the team he handed over driving duties to the recovering Hamilton during the lunch break to ensure that he is 100 per cent fit for his Sunday testing duties at the wheel of the W05.

Hamilton completed a series of long runs in the afternoon, getting through 89 to give the team a total of 156 for the day.

Elsewhere there were few problems on a day of heavy mileage for most teams.

Yesterday McLaren’s running was ended by a seal failure on the MGU-K of its MP4-30 and with a fix not scheduled to arrive until Saturday it had been suggested that today’s running, with Fernando Alonso at the wheel, might be similarly affected.

However, the Spaniard had no major issues and managed a total of 59 laps in the Honda-powered car, the highest total the team has achieved so far in a single day of 2015 testing. Alonso finished with the day’s seventh best time, a 1:25.961 that was 1.3s off Ricciardo’s pace.

After being eclipsed for third on the timesheet by Felipe Massa, Force India’s Sergio Perez made a late bid for glory on the supersoft tyre, but while his time improved it was not enough to raise him from fourth on the list. He finished the day with a best time of 1:24.702 in the 2014 VJM07. He also logged the day’s second largest lap total, completing 121 laps.

Marcus Ericsson also broke the century mark, racking up 113 laps for Sauber. The Swede brought out the red flags late in the session, stopping on the start-finish straight in what looked like a fuel-scavenging run for the Swiss team.

With Hamilton and Rosberg occupying fifth and sixth places on the timesheet respectively and Alonso seventh, eighth place went to Lotus reserve Jolyon Palmer who had a successful first outing with the Enstone squad. The English driver got through 77 laps and recorded a best time of 1:26.280.

Ericsson finished the day in ninth spot and the final placing went to Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz. The Spanish rookie had an eventful day, bringing our the red flags when he went off at Turn 9 in mid-afternoon and then retiring from the session with a technical problem half an hour before the chequered flag. Despite the setbacks Sainz was the only other driver to manage a century of laps.