Romain Grosjean set the fastest time on Day Two of the Mugello Test by less than one thousandth of a second ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
Lotus and Sauber quickest with near-identical times
Lotus maintained their recent resurgence as Romain Grosjean set the fastest time on Day Two of the Mugello Test by less than one thousandth of a second ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
Grosjean leapt to the top of timesheets with just an hour gone as a dry Wednesday morning in the Tuscany hills greeted the eleven teams in attendance - a sharp but very welcome contrast to the storms of Tuesday which resulted in just one hour of dry running.
Set so early in the day, Grosjean's lap of 1:21.603, which proved to be especially impressive given that it was made on hard tyres whereas Kobayashi's final flurry was set on the softs, thus amounted to instant exploitation of the favourable conditions and it quickly became apparent that the Frenchman's time would not be easily beaten with only Mark Webber able to break into the 1:21s before the lunch interval.
The Australian handed over driving duties to team-mate Sebastian Vettel for the afternoon session and the reigning World Champion set about his work in methodical style, steadily improving his lap-times throughout the day before setting his own fastest time - approximately both two-tenths faster than Webber's best and two-tenths slower than Grosjean's table-topping time - with an hour remaining.
The sting in the tale was still to follow, however, with Kobayashi's time, set just before the day's close, being the merest fraction of a second slower than Grosjean's according to Lotus. F1 really is ascloseasthat in 2012.
"It's always good to end the day on top, but we have to remember that in testing lap times mean very little," commented Grosjean. "Having said that, the car felt great and I was very comfortable from the start. This test gives us an opportunity to try things that we wouldn't have time to do during a race weekend, so hopefully it'll help us to keep pushing forward."
McLaren, meanwhile, had a quiet day with test driver Gary Paffett at the wheel of the MP4-27 in the absence of race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.
"It was an absolute no-brainer for us to be here, there was never any consideration for us not to be here," responded Webber to Sky Sports News when asked if Red Bull had also thought about giving their drivers an extended break. "Mileage is so limited these days that every opportunity we have to drive the car in the real world, we will do it."
Yet while Grosjean's early-morning effort and Webber's stinging rebuke stole the headlines, the real story of the day was the subtle changes being developed and tested up and down the pitlane. Both the Williams and the Red Bull carried conspicuously-garish sensors on their cars while the Toro Rosso received plenty of attention after introducing a 'McLarenesque' exhaust.
Ferrari, inevitably, were also subject to intense scrutiny in front of a large contingent of the Tifosi as the team continued to evaluate the mishandling F2012. With the car under the guidance of Felipe Massa, the F2012 carried a large periscope device for almost the entire duration of the day's running.
For Mercedes, Michael Schumacher was the session's long-distance, recording over 140 laps in the W03 and offering an upbeat assessment of his work at the close of play.
"It is obviously very useful to have a test session and with the consistent weather conditions we had today we could work the car and develop it with new items - so that's good for us."
Yet while Schumacher was able to put in the miles, Force India spent almost the entire day stuck in their garage due to a hydraulics fault.
Day Two Times1. Romain Grosjean Lotus Renault 1:21.603 97 laps
2. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1:21.603 87
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:21.825 64
4. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:21.997 54
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:22.257 106
6. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:22.424 65
7. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:22.759 22
8. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:23.404 144
9. Charles Pic Marussia 1:23.982 46
10. Vitaly Petrov Caterham 1:24.312 112
11. Gary Paffett McLaren 1:24.480 59
12. Timo Glock Marussia 1:24.499 37
13. Paul di Resta Force India 1:24.749 14
14. Bruno Senna Williams 1:24.842 100
